Chusoek

Robot Class. Alex 1, Alex 2, Rex, Molly, Clara, and Samuel.
Sophia, Jason, and myself. Celebrating FRIDAY!! Best Coworkers ever.


September 22 is Chuseok. Chuseok is sort of like Thanksgiving, but it is a celebration of the harvest. Or something like that. The day before and the day after are also considered part of the holiday. Chuseok is a time to spend with family. They wear Hanbok, traditional Korean clothes and bow to their elders. The eat rice cake and some kids were talking about getting money, but I'm not sure what the deal is there. We have the 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th off. Because we didn't know that we would also have the Friday off, we did not make plans. So we are now left with 6 whole days to do whatever we want and we could not be more excited!

The other big news is that my boss officially asked Jason and I to stay another year. That would mean finishing our contracts in March and signing a new one. We have until November to decide. I'm pretty torn about what to do. There are many pros-money, I like it, I like my boss, I like the kids, I have a job offer, I would get a raise and double the bonus at the end. There are some cons-I live in Korea which is far from home, 26 months in Asia is a long time, I don't particularly like working at a school that goes year round. Another part of the decision is that they have changed the visa laws, making it a harder and longer process so I do not want to get home and decide "whoops. should have stayed". I'm leaning towards staying because I don't have a plan or even any ideas. Thoughts?

Here are a bunch of pictures of the kids in their Hanbok. They also made rice cakes and learned the proper way to bow.

Sarah in King Class making rice cakes.

We had some waiting time so I said "Make sleepy faces!" This was the result.

Sunny and Peter's Brother in Apple class.

Samuel from Robot Class.

Sophia Teacher and King Class.

Two of my favorite students in Apple Class. The boy goes by Ian sometimes. I'm not sure he knows that though.

All of Apple Class in their adorable Hanbok.

Trying to get my kinders to pose for a class picture.

Rex.

Samuel.

Molly.

Clara. Clara is Korean age 7. Her birthday is January 10, 2005. Making her almost 6 American age. Right?

Alex 2.

Alex 1.

Demilizarized Zone in Paju, Gyunggi-do

Saturday September 4th.

In order to celebrate my 8 month anniversary in the ROK, I went to the DMZ. I got up at 6:30 and walked to the subway with Sophia. We went to the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul where we met up with Adventure Korea, the company taking us North. You have to be part of an official tour to go to the DMZ. Adventure Korea does all sorts of trips for foreign teachers. It cost 41,000 won, about 40 dollars. Including bus, lunch, entry fees, and a tour guide. Not too shabby.

I'm going to just copy the description of the trip from Adventure Korea, because it'll explain things. Then I'll bullet point some cool things that I liked and then I'll put some pictures on. Excited? Me too.

ImjinGak --Imjingak is as far as civilians can go to the North by themselves without permission Imjingak was built to console those who had to leave their homes in the North.It has Manngbaedan, an altar where those who cannot go back to their homes get together and pray for their ancestors on the New years day or Chusok Korean Thanksgiving day.Peace Bell was put with starting New Millenium 2000 for wishing a peace and unification between two Koreas.
In addition, you can walk on the Freedom Bridge, the discontinued Kyongui Line, where the sign says, “The train wants to run". The Freedom Bridge also used to exchanging the prisoners after Korean War, so its been called "Freedom Bridge" The suspended Kyongui Line will be reconnected within 2001.

The 3rd tunnel --The 3rd tunnel was first discovered in 1978, was dug by North Korea to infiltrate into the south It is 2m in width, 2m in height, 1,635m in length, and 435m from MDL.Visitors descend about 300 meters at a 14∼15 degree angle before reaching the North Korean infiltration tunnel, which is 73 meters below the surface. Its almost like 25∼30 stories building.The floor of the tunnel (interception & infiltration tunnel) is covered with rubber mats and the wall with charcoal which was applied to give some possibility to the North Korean claim that the tunnel was part of an abandoned mine. This tunnel would allow about 10,000 armed or 30,000 unarmed soldiers to invade Seoul within one hour.

Dora observatory --This allows visitors to get a view both of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) and of the Kesung city the second largest city of North Korea. You can also see a "Propaganda village" Kijongdong designed to give visitors the impression the North Korea is a prosperous nation. Visitors can see the Daesungdong, freedom village of South Korea.
The village has got some benefit from the government such as free of tax, exemption of Military service. Also visible from the observatory is a head of train, which used to run between the North and South Korea. The National Ministry of Defense built it in 1986.

Tongilchon (unification village) --There are two villages inside DMZ.The first one is Daesongdong just near the Panmunjom and the other one is Tongilchon. You can notice the life of the people who live near the border.The thieves cannot sneak into the village. Therefore each house doesnt have any gates and addresses.The village is famous for rice, soybean, Jinseng especially the rice and Jinseng are popular among the people.The villages been holding "Soybean festival", every November (since 1987). If you want to take part in it, come to Imjink with your passport or ID card issued by south korean government.

• going 73 underground was very hard for me. We wore hard hats and there were a lot of parts of the tunnel that required ducking. I was nauseous the whole time. I hate being underground.
  
• There were a lot of parts of the trip that we weren't allowed to take pictures of because they don't want North Korean spies to get anything.
• The South Korean soldiers spoke perfect English and were very friendly. Although, I did see them take some cameras from morons and delete pictures that were taken in prohibited areas.
• the trip was kind of boring, but I'm not that upset about it. It is an active military situation. And essentially just a barbwire fence surrounded by mine fields. I guess it makes sense that its not woah exciting.
  
• The trees that they have to prune around the border are used for fuel.
  
• We went to the Train Station that has a weekly train running supplies from Seoul to a town in NK. The hope is that once the country is united, the rail will be able to connect to China, Russia, Europe, and England.
  
• The documentary explaining the 4 tunnels kept saying "North Korea was trying to sneak attack Seoul" and I kept giggling because of sneak attack.
• We had to get our passports registered and show them to the soldier who came on the bus to check things out.
• This was another example of my lack of knowledge about South Korea. I wish I would have known more about where we were and what I was seeing. I'm still pretty confused about where exactly we were.
  

We got back to Seoul around 6 and Sophia and I got to Ori at 6:50. We showered and went into Suji for some galbi. Then we went to Batman bar, played darts with the bartender who speaks zero English. Next we went to Exit for a South African friend's birthday. Exit got a foosball table, and that was fun. Turns out I'm terrible at foosball, but I had a great time. Sunday was a laundry and general cleaning/being lazy day.

This week at work was much much better. On Wednesday, there was apparently a Typhoon. I slept through it. But Thursday on the walk to work, we saw a lot of trees and branches down on the roads and on the river. When we got to school, we were informed that the kinders would not be coming and since there are no elementary kids on Thursday, we could leave at 2:30. Heyoo! Typhoon day! Pretty sweet.

Pictures.


A map. Where we were. Some places we went. How close we were to North Korea.
Kimchi pots and Sophia. See her? It's like a game.

Dorasan Station sign.

This is me. I am standing in front of a train with 1200 bullet holes that was in the DMZ.

D is for Dale.

The statue that is by the 3rd tunnel. And me. After the terrible ordeal of being 73 meters underground.

Me on the Freedom Bridge. North Korea is behind me.
Dorasan Observatory. Group shot. They were behind the picture line. Sophia, Ireland and her parents, Nick, Ben, and SaraBrown is back there somewhere too.

This is a soldier by the Freedom Bridge. And me.

Demilitarized Zone. Sophia-D SaraBrown-M Katie-Z