Holiday Nostalgia

Today, being the day after Thanksgiving, I moved into the holiday spirit. I decorated my classroom for Christmas, made Hot Buttered Rum (from scratch), and watched a Christmas movie. I'm realizing that the holiday season won't be the same in Korea. I have wonderful friends who are happy to share in the movie watching and holiday foods with me, but I will miss Christmas movies with Debbie, Christmas Cookies with the girls in the family, cheesy Christmas music on the radio, and the excessive decorations and advertisements. Christmas is not celebrated on Jeju to 1/100th of the extent it is in America. There's already talk of a Christmas Brunch in my building and possibly a gift exchange, but I will miss my family. I'm one of those "really-into-Christmas" people...light looking and Gingerbread Lattes make me very happy. Hopefully the weekend before Christmas getaway to the mainland will feed my hunger for Christmas Cheer. And singing Christmas Carols with my 900 students.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday season! Take it all in, I already miss it.

The last 2 weeks

It's fun to play in the snow!

It's been a busy few weeks full of yoga, Buddhist Temples, snow, delicious Korean food and hiking. (Fortunately for me, these are my favorite things!) I'm consciously not planning anything this weekend to give myself a break. Except, of course, our Thanksgiving Feast on Saturday afternoon!

Last weekend we visited 2 Temples on Mt. Halla. The first was Gwaneumsa (gwan-oom-sah) which is one of the largest temples on Jeju. We met a nice monk who spoke English very well. He showed us around and invited us in for lunch. The weather was amazing, the nicest we've had in at least a week, no rain, no snow, clear skies. We could see all the way to the ocean and even to Chuja Island! And as a bonus, the leaves are still turning colors on the mountain.

This new Buddha statue is the largest in South Korea.

The grounds and view of Jeju City and the oceanFrom left: John, Maya, Colleen, Alex, Sherrin, the monk (su-nim),

Young Ja, Marcie, Kim

The 2nd temple was a small hermitage on Yeongsil (Yong-sheel)a bit farther up the mountain. To my surprise, there was snow!!! Last week it snowed in the city twice and the mountain had a bit of snow on it, but I didn't realize that it would already be so snowy. We hiked about a half hour up to the hermitage and met a monk on a 3 year retreat. He was incredibly kind, making the 9 of us green tea and inviting us in for dinner. He was happy to share some Buddhist wisdom with us over tea.

John in the snow!

Kimchi pots

Our friendly monk who took a liking to my friend John

The Bo Sa Lim (person in service to the monks) who made us dinner and Young Ja, our friend and translator

The temple bell

From left: Amy, Maja, Alex, Su-nim, me, Marcie, John, Kim, Bosalim, Colleen...and the snowman!
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Friday was the 2nd Annual Foreign Language Festival hosted by the Jeju Provincial Office of Education (my employer). All the foreign teachers had to come volunteer in booths of different English speaking countries. Since there were more than enough Americans, I chose Australia and spent the day teaching kids the song "Home Among the Gum Trees" and eating Vegemite. Fortunately the weather cooperated since it had been raining and snowing the rest of the week.

My friend Emma in the USA booth. They were serving hot dogs!

The Aussie Tent

My co-teacher, Kee Jeung (Stella is her English name) and I sporting Aussie flags

Mmmm...Vegemite! (Did you notice my new glasses yet?)

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Last week my Korean language friend came over with her friend Nam and cooked kimchi jigae (kim-chee-jee-gay) and bulgogi for us. Cindy and Jason came over and we ate a scrumptious homemade feast. I invited them over for our Thanksgiving this weekend. Hopefully we'll have a little traditional American to share with them.

Sinnae, Nam, Jason (holding my bottle of Bailey's) and I after dinner in my apartment

Nam stirring bulgogi and Kimchi-jigae (soup with kimchi, onions, pork, garlic, and chili paste). Notice the marmite and maple syrup above my stove? Not your average Korean household! You have to know where to get those...

Before cooking all the chili paste, onions and pork
Sinnae is cutting fresh kimchi. It is made from whole cabbages, then cut with scissors. Koreans use scissors in the kitchen instead of knives. Nam is mashing the chili paste into the meat, kind of like making meatloaf. He's not to pleased...

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Two weeks ago I went to some tea farms and hiked an oreum. This is Mihee sharing homegrown green tea with us. Her husband's family owns this farm.

Green Tea Plantation

On top of the oreum...it was a blustery fall day! Kim, Marcie, Ji Young, and Colleen

The oreum we hiked above Mihee's family's green tea plantation

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The first yoga classes went really well. Seven people came to the first and 3 to the second. This week I'll teach on Wednesday and the woman who's co-instructing will teach Tuesday. There continues to be much interest among the foreigners. I'm also trying to encourage Koreans to come. One Korean teacher did come last week with some foreign teachers.

Winter holidays start in 4 weeks!! EPIK teachers have to be in school throughout the 5 week vacation even though there are no kids. We teach camps and do some extra work (don't know what yet). I'll be taking my 7 days of vacation towards the end of January, plus we get 1 extra day for volunteering at the festival last friday. We also get 1 day for Christmas, 1 day for New Years and 2 days for Lunar New Year. January should be a laid back month. But first things first...gotta get those Christmas presents in the mail ASAP!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Food and Yoga

Jeju Culinary Creations

Korean food is delicious: a variety of spicy flavors and dishes. The last few days I've enjoyed a duck galbi dinner, a Buddhist Temple vegetarian dinner, Shabbu, Shabbu - throw raw stuff into seasoned water and voila!, and seon tubu hae-jang-guk, a spicy tofu soup. But the time has come where American food returns to my tastebuds warmly welcomed. Friday night I went to a friend's house for dinner and we had bacon-wrapped potatoes with cheese and ranch dressing, steak, salad, and birthday cake with ice cream. I don't remember the last time I was able to describe a meal as truly "gut-busting." Saturday night I joined a few friends for a housewarming and to my surprise was met with homemade chili and an assortment of fresh Philipino delicacies like lumpia (spring rolls) and pork adobo. Thursday I made creamy pumpkin soup. And let's not forget good ol' homecooked breakfast...french toast, hashbrowns and tofu scramble. This is just in time for the Thanksgiving preparations soon to be underway. The only problem I forsee is that none of us have ovens....Hmmm...

Haejangguk 해장국 - it comes to your table bubbling

and most people add raw eggs (not me)

A small Korean tea 차 house

Did I mention the banana split at Ti Amo

with my language exchange friend Sin Nae?

Jeju Yoga

The demand for yoga is high on Jeju. Koreans are very interested in yoga when I mention that I practice and teach yoga and people usually ask for a lesson. Currently, I'm teaching 3-4 times a week. I've been teaching/practicing with a friend in my dorm 2-3 days a week. I teach the first-grade teachers in their English class once a week (by popular demand). And yesterday I started teaching some Buddhist women at a temple I attend in the city. Last week they invited me in for dinner and, again, implored that I teach them yoga. I happily agreed and last night we had our first half hour class. Of course, these women speak only slightly more English than I speak Korean. Fortunately, yoga is repetitive and easy to follow. They watch me most of the time and I speak slower than normal - remarkably slowly - trying to repeat phrases they can grasp. I try to throw in some Korean when I can, but I haven't done that too much yet. I'm sure we'll develop a unique Yoga-Konglish language in which we can all communicate. Surprisingly, I follow most of what they say to me and vice versa. Sometimes it's easy enough to communicate with body language, beautiful smiles, and a genuine connection. I am honored to be invited into their community and learn so much from them.

So my next challenge is teaching foreigners. I decided last month that I wanted to offer a yoga class in Shin Jeju (the new part of the city). I found through the grapevine a space available for anyone to start a club or activity. Yesterday I checked it out and set a tentative time for our first class next week. I've already have heard some feedback and the biggest challenge I forsee is the difference in schedule between the EPIK teachers (public schools) and Hagwon teachers (private language schools). I may end up teaching more than one class a week if the demand is there. As my tendancy is to overbook myself, I need to remember to keep some free time. I have weekly engagements Monday - Thursday and the weekends always fill up fast with dinners, touring the island, and catching up with friends. I'm actually remarkably busy, by choice of course. That sunrise yoga practice gets harder as the weeks go by.

American Election - a world away

My election decorations: I did a short lesson on the American election procedure

Most of the kids knew about President-
Elect Obama the election results

Temple Stay

Halloween was a blast! My school loved my witch costume and some of the other teachers enjoyed dressing up, too.

My co-teacher Byeong Su dressed up! A first for him...

We "studied" Halloween at our Teachers' English class. They all wanted to wear costumes, too!4th Grade Teachers: Ok Sun, Se Eum, Kee Jeung (my co-teacher) and Hyo Ju.

Our scary 3rd graders...

After the Halloween festivities Friday night (involving 1 bar, live music, and WAY too many foreigners), I went to Gimnyeong Beach for an overnight Seon Buddhist Temple Stay. There were 10 of us plus the Seon Master Monk and Young Ja, our coordinator. We started with a tour of the temple. This is the older of the two Temple Buildings.

The Buddha Statue in the new Temple:

This Pagoda houses the bell which we each got to ring at 4am on Sunday.

This is a beautiful picture of Sunim (the title of Monk in Korean) showing us around the grounds. She doesn't speak any English so Young Ja (above) acted as translator.

The food is always delicious here! Korean Buddhists are vegetarian and eat very traditional Korean food. We ate dinner and breakfast at these tables. For lunch on Sunday we got to use Bal-U bowls which are traditional bowls that monks use. It is quite a ceremonial way to eat. Each movement is deliberate and conscious and the meal is eaten in complete silence.

Bal-U Bowls:

Saturday night we had a ceremony after dinner. We did the traditional 108 bows following Sunim's beat of the Juk-be, a wooden mallet she would strike in her hand for each bow.

We made traditional Korean Lotus lanterns and processed through the grounds with them lit. It was a beautiful, clear night. From the left: Ruzena, Sunim, Maya, Young Ja, Alex, Shanna, Alex, Me, Cindy, and Julia. The little girl was there for the whole weekend but I don't remember her name!

One of our many tea ceremonies:
Sunday we awoke at 3:30 for the 4am ceremony. Well, none of us slept because of the mosquitoes. Yes, mosquitoes in November. I'm still getting bit every day! But we got up at 3:30 to ring the bell and participate in the morning service. Then we walked to Gimnyeong Beach, but we were too early for sunrise! Breakfast was at 6:30am...rice porridge with soy sauce, dried Kim (seaweed), Kimchi, Eggplant, and a few other side dishes. I didn't think my stomach could handle Kimchi at 6:30am, but I was hungry enough to deal with it. Sunday's big activity was copying the Heart Sutra. Young Ja made us copies of the 276 Chinese characters that make up one of the founding sutras of Buddhism. We did one bow (drop to your knees, forehead to the floor, lift the hands) and traced one character, then got up (rock back on your toes, hands to your heart, stand up straight) for all 276 characters. It took us about an hour and a half and we were all sweaty and exhausted, but it was really meditative and surprisingly calming.

The Temple stay was a wonderful experience. Sunim left Monday to go on a winter retreat, then she'll be back at her home Temple in the mainland in the spring. We are planning a visit to see her.