What goes on.

Since the last update, most of what’s going on here has just been the normal routine of going to school every day.  But thanks to my awesome school, every day at school is different and interesting.  Last week, one random day they were just like “We don’t have classes for the first 3 hours, we have special activities.”  So some kids were in the “movie-watching” activity, some kids were in the “carving totem-poles” activity, some kids were in the playing pocket-ball (their word for pool) activity, and I was in the science experiment activity.  So we made soap using Sodium Hydroxide and oil.  And we also pricked our fingers and tested our blood type.  I LOVE MY HIGH SCHOOL!

Last weekend, I traveled to Jeonju to sit for the TOPIK exam.  That’s Test of Proficiency in Korean.  The exam in itself was ridiculously boring, but the trip to Jeonju was nice.  Well, mostly.  By the time Alyssa and I were on the bus home, we were extremely happy to be going back.  It’s difficult, after only interacting with each other for so long, to get used to having to interact with a whole team of other people.  People who don’t speak English don’t count.  Don’t get me wrong, it was really nice to hang out and catch up with the other kids from the program, but it was tiring.  Alyssa and I are such good friends, that there is no acting or putting up a false face, like people do when they are with company that they aren’t close with. 

Anyways, the reason that Jeonju is famous is because it has this traditional Korean “hanok” villiage.  A hanok is a traditional Korean house.  Audra and Eunice live in Jeonju, so some kids from their school came and gave us tours of the area (they got community service hours for it xD)  After that, we hung out for a while.  It was really nice to be with my teacher from Seoul again.

We were on the bus back from Jeonju, realizing that we didn’t really know how we were getting back from the bus station.  I called my mom, but my parents were going to mass so they couldn’t come get us, and Alyssa’s host mom doesn’t have a car.  I thought we would be taking busses to our respective towns (which is scary—busses in Seoul are predictable and their routes are simple and always the same.  Busses here are few and very infrequent.)  But then my host mom called and was like “I called the taxi ajeosshi!  He will come pick you up in Cheongju!”  We were so relieved.  It’s pretty nice having a personal driver that you don’t have to pay for xD

Starting last week, every Wednesday night we spend at school.  Alyssa stays in the first year girls’ room, and I stay with the second year girls.  It’s really fun to stay there, but I can’t say it’s the most restful night of sleep J  At 9:00, they have to go to their rooms.  They clean their rooms and get ready until 10:00, which is when they have “writing in their diary/reading” time, which they also use to chat.  Last Wednesday, the dorm “mom”, who is one of the female teachers, came in and was like, “Is this what Emma came to Korea to watch?”  And so we went around in a circle and talked about our days, which was nice.  At 11:00, the lights turn out, but all the girls have lights on their desks for studying, so it isn’t a problem or anything.  Then they stay up chatting until 1 or 2 in the morning. 

Last Friday was our class “picnic”.  Starting from middle school, Korean students have one class picnic every semester.  I think maybe it’s like some sort of compromise—the schools keep the students until 11 PM every night, making them ridiculously stressed and giving them no time to relax, and in return the school provides one day of fun each semester.  Doesn’t sound like a fair trade to me!  But anyways, my school is fun every day, so I guess I shouldn’t be the one complaining.

So for our picnic, my class took a bus to Seoul and went to Everland, which is an amusement park.  Unfortunately, I only rode two rides before my stomach felt absolutely awful, so the day could have gone better.  But anyways, it was a pretty fun day.  It was nice to be able to hang out with the friends from my class all day.  Even though my school is more relaxed than most, there is still a pretty definitive line between the way students act when they are at school and when they aren’t.  That’s another reason I love staying over on Wednesday nights.  After school is over, the girls are so much more silly, relaxed, and fun.

I guess that’s all for now!  I haven’t really done anything this weekend (except go mountain climbing with my parents) and I don’t have plans yet for next weekend, so I might not have anything to write about for a while.  We’ll see :P

Chuseok

As you may know, this last weekend was Chuseok, which is typically known to Americans as the Harvest Festival, or the “Korean Thanksgiving.” Let me start by talking about what Chuseok is.  It’s date is determined by the lunar calendar (this year it was September 12^th), but it is traditionally a 3 day event.  The meaning of Chuseok is to thank your ancestors for the plentiful harvest. 

So, we started out our Chuseok celebration on Sunday.  I woke up and helped my mom (as much as she would let me)  prepare some of the food that we were bringing to my host uncle’s house.  That’s another thing:  for Chuseok, you always celebrate at the house of the oldest male in the family (on the paternal side).  My host dad has an older brother, so we went to his house.  In Alyssa’s case, her host dad is the oldest male, so people came to her house.  Anyways, we started out the morning by preparing food to bring.  We made these yummy little fish things that were slices of fish covered in flour, and then this egg and vegetable stuff, then pan fried.  I want to make it when I come back to America! 

After Jiwon and Jonghyun finally woke up and got ready to go, it was already 4 PM xD  So we started out on the road to Daejeon, where my host uncle and his family live.  It only takes us about a half hour to get there, so it was a half hour of me being nervous (okay, I have to pause here and say that while I was just trying to type “me being”  I typed “meing”.  LOL .  This is a new sort of contraction xD).  Anyways, I was really nervous about meeting so many new people, especially at an event as traditional as Chuseok.

We got to their apartment, and they were all very nice.  My host cousins consist of a boy that’s like 28, a girl that’s 24, and a boy that’s 20.  So they are all older than me, Jonghyun, and Jiwon.  The 28 year old cousin I had met once before, when he came and took us on a drive around a mountain about a month ago.  So when I got there, I pretty much just talked to him for a while, since he also speaks pretty good English.  I’ve met him twice, but I’m feel way closer to him than I do to Jiwon.  The girl also speaks English really well—she studied in California for 6 months. 

We ate this huge dinner in the typical Korean style—everybody gets a bowl of rice and a bowl of soup, and then there are about 10 different dishes in the middle of the table that everyone shares.  These are called “Pan-chan”, and the English translation is “side dish”, but I don’t really think there is an English equivalent.  These dishes range from standard Kimchi, to beef, fish, eggplant, beans…etc.  They aren’t really side dishes, as they are the main meal, but there are only small dishes of each that everyone eats a little of everything.  Though I will say that the small dishes hold a lot more meat than you’d think.  It seems like you everyone eats out of it all dinner and the amount never diminishes!

After dinner, my oldest host cousin proposed that we go out and see a little of Daejeon, so the 6 of us (the cousins, me, Jonghyun, and Jiwon) went to this big park.  Anyways, my cousin and I walked around this pretty little park and garden area, and it was really nice.  After we got back to the car, we all went to Noraebang, which was fun, but sort of awkward.  Noraebang (Karaoke room) is really really fun if you go with friends, but when you go with people you don’t know it’s awkward.  It was still a good time though, and better than if we had been at home, because we would have just been watching TV with the parents.   After Noraebang, we went to the Coffee Shop and hung out for a bit.  Then we went back to my cousins apartment, and I taught them how to play Skip-Bo.  It really helped that the girl cousin speaks English xD  They all had a really fun time playing it, and they all got really into trying to win.  We played 3 games.  Even Jiwon thought it was fun.  Then I played cards a little bit with Jonghyun and the cousin that is his age, and then we went to sleep.

On the morning of Chuseok, we woke up at about 7 (after going to sleep at past 2 xD) and the females all helped prepare all the food.  My host mom and aunt had been awake since 5:30AM preparing it ><  The food is all arranged on these little pedestal dishes and placed on a low table that is placed in front of this big screen with stuff written on it.  I didn’t take any pictures, as this is a family ritual and I didn’t know if it would be okay.  It probably would have been, but I’m usually too nervous about it to ask.

Once we got all the food set out, the ceremony started.  I sat and watched, with my host mom and my host aunt.  Because they aren’t descendants of the paternal family, they don’t participate.  Yet they aren’t allowed to go to their own homes on Chuseok and give thanks to their ancestors, because they have to prepare everything for the males.  That goes back to the tradition that the female becomes part of the male family after marriage.  Anyways, my host uncle and host dad led the ceremony thing, and it basically consisted of this really rigid structure of bowing and then pouring some drink, then bowing and placing chopsticks on certain food, then bowing more.  And there was incense.  It was really interesting to watch, because there really is nothing like it in America.  This ritual is performed three times a year-  on Chuseok, the Lunar New Year, and the anniversary of the death of the father of the oldest male.  So, on November 20^th, the anniversary of my host dad’s father’s death, we will go to Daejeon again and do the same ritual again.  Well, they’ll go, I’ll be in Seoul.

After the ritual was finished, we ate the food and sat and talked for a bit, and then the men watched TV, while the females all washed the dishes and cleaned up.  This reminds me American holidays xD 

After we finished that, we left to go to the tomb of my host dad’s father.  It was an hour and a half away.  When we got there, they put a dried fish on his tomb, poured soju, then did the bowing thing.  After that, we went to a little picnic table and ate a lot of fruit.  Then, we said goodbye and went home.

Now is the third day of Chuseok, which is the day of rest J

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated my blog.

I’m just looking through my diary trying to remember everything I’ve done so I can write about it, but I’ve done a lot!  I'll hit the highlights :)

One of the days a few weeks ago some of the girls wanted to take us out to get fried chicken, so we got permission from the nuns and took a call van into Oksan, which is the town closest to our school.  The fried chicken was absolutely delicious!  And It was really cool to hang out with the girls.  When we were coming back, there wasn’t a call van available, so we could either wait or walk.  I was like “lets just walk and work off the fried chicken”  So we walked back, and it took about 30 minutes, and we were walking through the most bizarre country areas on the way home.  It was a lot of fun though! 

One of the days, I went to Daejeon to meet Gooseul (my teacher from Seoul)  to finalize my application for a visa.  I took the train back, and the nuns and Alyssa picked me up from the train station.  I thought we were going back to school, but we went really far off the beaten path, and we finally ended up at this tiny run-down looking house.  Turns out, it was the bird hatchery.  So we came back with 7 baby peacocks in the trunk ^^  Then they waited in the trunk while we went with the nuns to eat Green Tea Patbingsu  ^^

Our S’more adventure!  One day the week before last, when Alyssa was in art class, the teacher was like, “let’s not do art today, lets eat potatoes.”  So they built a campfire and roasted potatoes.  When I heard about this, my immediate thought was “campfire?  We can make s’mores!”  This was Alyssa’s first thought too.  So we spent our Korean studying hour trying to plan out how we could get to a store and procure ingredients for S’mores.  Then our nun (who teaches us Korean)  left, and came back and was like “we can take you to the Costco in Daejeon—we have a membership card”.  So that night (it was Friday so we didn’t eat dinner at school)  We went with the nuns to Daejeon.  Which ended up being an hour and a half drive.  I felt really bad that they drove us that far, but they shopped too so it made me feel better.  The next week, on Tuesday, after school the art teacher helped us set up a fire, and we taught everyone how to make smores.  Everyone really enjoyed it and thought they were delicious.  I was really happy to be able to give something to the students.

Last weekend, on Saturday, I went to Seoul to hang out with friends and Soontaek.  I met up with my penpal Youkang and her friends and went to their school festival, which was really fun.  Then I met up with Soontaek and went to Itaewon and then Namsan Tower.  I had a good time.  Then I took the train  back.  Sunday morning, I woke up and thought it would be a slow paced, nice relaxing day, and then Sister Camilla called and was like “We’re going to the mountain!”  At which point I still thought it might be a nice relaxing day.  We drove up the mountain for an hour and a half, then stopped and ate, then starting walking up the rest of the mountain.  After about 20 minutes, we finally reached this statue and took pictures, and I thought we would be done, but we kept hiking.  For four hours.  Up a mountain.  At the end of it, we were at this drama set, and we got to see the drama being filmed, which was cool.  Then we went and ate a huge delicious dinner, so all the hiking was for nothing ><

This weekend is Chuseok.  So it will be interesting, and I'll write about it later!