Friday, November 28, 2008
Holiday Nostalgia
Wishing you a wonderful holiday season! Take it all in, I already miss it.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
The last 2 weeks
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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.
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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!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Food and Yoga
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.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Temple Stay
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.
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.