Here are some pictures of my apartment that I took on my second day here. Obviously I wasn't organized but you get the idea. Along the left wall sits my bed, television, desk and wardrobe. Along the right wall is my clothes drying rack, refrigerator and microwave. Then you see my "kitchen," if it can be called that, and my bathroom, shower and laundry room all wrapped into one. Yes, my shower consists of a shower head in one corner of my bathroom. And no, I do not have enough leg room to properly sit on my toilet. BUT, I do have amazing floor heat in my apartment.
These are a few pictures from our trip to Tongyeong on Christmas day. I will talk more about these amazing exercise parks sometime, but for now just know that these things are scattered about everywhere in Jinju! Along the river paths, along the trails in the hills, in the middle of a city park... they're great!
This is from a walk I took along the river the day after Christmas, looking across to the fortress--a similar view as the one in the photo at the title of my blog.
I have a feeling this will be the first of many photos taken next to large phallic objects; they seem to be everywhere here... In fact, there's an entire park dedicated to large stone and wooden phalluses somewhere in this country. This one's just at some random bar we went to in downtown Jinju.
I took quite a few pictures during the New Year's holiday. As previously mentioned, I went with a large group of other foreign teachers to Namhae, Korea's fifth largest island. There were somewhere between 16-20 people in our pension, which consisted of an entry room where one removes his or her shoes, a kitchen with a small table, a central room with a few tables (where you sit on the floor) and a sleeping room. Every room was divided by sliding doors, and our balcony looked out onto the bay. Oh, and there were two bathrooms--one for men and one for women. On January 1, we took a trip to another part of the island to a pretty popular beach called Sangju and on the way back stopped at a Buddhist temple. The surroundings of the temple--and the entire experience in itself--was quite surreal. We could hear chanting coming from the trees in the distance as we climbed up the mountain side to the top, which overlooked the mountains and the sea. Pictures never really do these types of places justice, but take my word that it was incredible.
Below are Megan, Chris and myself; these two arrived to Jinju only two weeks before I did, so we've all bonded and become fairly close as we navigate our new lives here in Korea.
Enjoying the abundant sunshine, beautiful view, and good company at Sangju:
A few of the crazy boys thought it would be a good idea to go for a swim; it was probably around 30 degrees Fahrenheit, if not colder!
We came across a food stand that sold corn dogs and couldn't resist!
Keep in mind that 13 of us piled into two small sedans that day to get to the beach. When we turned off to get to the temple on our way back, I had no idea what we were doing. In fact, I don't think anybody in my car knew where we were going because we were just following the car in front of us. Suddenly we were heading up an extremely steep road, possibly the steepest road I've ever driven up. The front tires slipped at a few points with all six bodies in the car, but once we started heading up it was an even worse idea to even think about going back down the hill. So up we went, and worthwhile the scare it was.
There were four of us who became the stragglers in the group; we hadn't even made it to the top yet by the time the rest of the group was already on their way down. We were taking our time, soaking in the surroundings, breathing in the moment. We couldn't seem to tear ourselves away from the place, so we decided to take a seat in some grass to soak it all in just a little bit more. For the 10-15 minutes that we sat there with the sun on our faces, inside was nothing but a feeling of pure serenity. During these moments I felt as though I could have sat there forever.
Finally, we stopped in a little town just outside of where we were staying to pick up some grocery items for dinner that night. Right next to where we parked our cars, we saw this on the window of a restaurant. Yes, people still eat dog in Korea.
I'll continue to post pictures when I can, or I'll post a link to the photo albums that I create on Facebook.
Tomorrow I start my Winter English Camp, which every public school teacher does for at least a few weeks. I think I got pretty lucky and only have two weeks of camp with the boys, who are divided into two groups of about 12, so it will be nice and small and intimate. I only see each group for two hours a day, so the afternoons should be mine to do with as I please. This will be my first real taste of what it's like to teach these boys over here in Korea (funny that I started right before the winter vacation), so I am sure I'll have more insight to share about that aspect of life over here on a later date.
In the meantime, happy 2010 to all!
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