School ended on Monday the 22nd, and on the 23rd I went on an overnight teachers trip which was supposed to be a teaching reading workshop...turns out that's a complete coverup for a huge party. We left on Tuesday morning and made our first stop in the city of Gyongju to have some of the famous tofu soup and ginseng makaley. Makaley is a white korean rice wine which is home made, and this special type was infused with Ginseng root. I quickly realized that this trip would be an eating fest, so I asked my friend and coworker, Jolie, to teach me how to say, "No, Thank you, I'm full," and "I don't want to eat anymore." Koreans eat A LOT of food and they can't understand how I couldn't eat as much of them, so they insist on making me try things, even as I'm stuffed from the 5th course of the meal! After lunch in Gyongju, we made our way to the city of Pohang where we went to a famous temple. It was nice and we took a lot of group pictures with the teachers, including a "singles" pic of the 5 unmarried teachers, myself included. After an hour and a half at the temple, we hopped back on the bus and made our way through the mountains to get to the famous Jwangchung Mountain. On the way, our female vice principal provided entertainment by singing traditional korean songs and made us play some pretty funny games. I felt like I was on a teen tour for Korean adults! It was hilarious! When we finally made it through the mountain passes, we arrived at our motel the Dream Palace, which I can assure you is a misnomer. The "Dream Palace" was freezing cold and we got to sleep on the floor! We ate another huge meal and drank a bit more makaley (at least I did, many people drank A LOT of makaley) and then it was time for our workshop aka sports tournament.
The sports tournament was definitely the highlight of the trip. The female vice principal divided the teachers in to two teams and we each had to sign up for at least one round of the tournament, if not more. Since many of the games required Korean, I was entered into Crab Volleyball by default. First was the "acccent" game. The vice principal gave a word and each team had to have each of five players say the word emphasizing every syllable. For instance, one word was "mcDonalds" (of course this would be the one english word they chose) so they had to say Mcdonalds, mcDonalds, mcdoNalds, mcdonalDs or something like that. Anyway, it only got better from there. Next was the "kissing game." Each teacher playing was given a 3 inch long straw which they held in their mouth. Starting with the first player on line, they then had to pass a paper ring along the line using only the straw! This required very close mouth-to-mouth contact and the whole room was in hysterics watching! Notice my principal in the background of the picture, wishing he could get in on the action! Soooo funny. Finally, it was my turn to play crab volleyball, in which you play volleyball with a balloon and using only your feet and head. After three LONG sets, my team lost, but we put up a great effort! Finally, it was time for some karaoke and we called it a night by 1 a.m. The next day we went hiking at Jwungchung Mountain and then went for a feast of King Crab in the city of Yongda. I was finally home by 5 pm on Christmas eve.
The fun continued at a Christmas Eve party hosted by my good friends Heidi and Matt. One of the best parts was their suprise...a puppy they bought named Clancy! The toy poodle was soooo cute. We ate western food and drank red wine and then headed to a Noreabang (karaoke room) to meet our other friends and exchange our secret santa gifts. We sang Christmas eve night away, putting out of our minds the family we missed at home and instead enjoying the great friends we've all made here. It was truely a great night. On Christmas Day, I met my three best friends here for our own little gift exchange and then we cooked a western meal and spent the day watching Christmas movies. It certainly didn't make me wish I was home any less, but it was a far greater holiday than I expected to have here in Korea. I'm really lucky to have met such great people here. And now Christmas is over and I have New Years to look forward to! I'm heading off to Japan tomorrow with Kathryn, Natalie and Nisha where we'll spend 6 days in Tokyo and Kyoto, and party into 2009 in Tokyo. It's really cool to know that I've fullfilled my dream of being on the otherside of the world for New Years 2009! Hope you all had a great Christmas and have a wonderful New Year too. Love you all!
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