February in Korea

Notes on the month of February

Quiet work weeks, and weekends spent away. Overall, a pretty nice few weeks. After finishing January with a Ski trip, the next weekend I went with a meetup travel group to YongPyong Ski Resort. YongPyong is a much larger ski resort with a gondola and everything! But still, there was almost no real snow on the ground The mountain it was on would actually count as a mountain, but the ski hill seems like really inefficient use of space. They have these really long runs along ridges, but where a ski resort in Canada would have numerous steep, narrow double black runs off the edge of these ridges. The weather was great and the snow was really well made. They did have a few steep runs, which allowed me to ski fast, so overall it was a fantastic weekend.

Then, the next weekend I went on ANOTHER trip. This trip was also with the meetup group. It’s a really interesting social dynamic. Almost all the people on these trips are foreigners who’ve left everything behind to come and teach in Korea for a year. This results in there being a lot of outgoing people, who, due to their time spend working with children, have a slight tendency to behave like them. Consequently, it’s really fun.

This second trip was to Busan, a southern port city with a beautiful beach, and to Jeju Island. Jeju is one of Korea's most popular tourist attraction, and is advertised as almost a tropical destination. Our main purpose of going to Jeju Island was to hike Mt. Halasan, the highest peak in Korea. There was still snow on the mountain, so we had to have ‘Cramp-ons’ to get any grip on the icy path.

It was cold, but the snow probably made the hike more beautiful, because we were in an isolated winter wonderland. I was hiking by myself for a little while, and at one point I stopped, and just enjoyed the Silence. It’s not often in Korea that you get to stand somewhere and hear no people, no cars, and no k-pop. This trip involved two overnight ferries, and though both ferries had the infrastructure for big parties, they didn’t seem to have the people or budget for them, so I mostly sat around and played cards.



Finally, I made it to the fourth weekend in February and it was quiet. Friday night involved pizza and drinks in Sinchon, the closest neighbourhood of seoul with good nightlife. Saturday night was my grade 5 graduating students special dinner party. It was supposed to be at OUTBACK steak house, but was (in my opinion) downgraded to Bennigans, another foreign food restaurant in my neighbourhood.



That work week was a strange one. It was the end of the semester, so we were finishing our text books and winding down our classes by showing movies and doing the best of the best talent show. Hurray for six year olds who can play the piano pieces that I learned in Grade 9.



I have decided that I don’t like children’s magic shows. Especially when it’s all about the kids awkwardly doing tricks with fancy toys that their parents bought them. There were a couple students with pretty good slight of hand, but they were few and far between. You really can’t compare the kid with a trick paper bag to the kid who practices violin for an hour everyday even though they’re 7 years old. And still, I’m surprised at how evident talent is at that age. You can tell the kids who are playing the notes on the page, versus those who actually feel the music.



The final trip of the month was to Geomundo Island. A friend found this trip on Adventure Korea, a website for a travel company targeted almost entirely towards foreigners living in Korea, knowing that most of the foreigners living in South Korea are teachers interested in sightseeing, experiencing culture, and not spending a lot of money. This trip involved an overnight bus for 6 hours, an early morning ferry, checking into a hotel, having some time to explore the island, and provided meals. Day two on the island was more structured, with a boat tour out to an area called Bokdo and a group hike along the coast to a lighthouse. Overall, island life was really relaxing. Something about the waves on the beach, and the salt in the air just makes everything slow down.

Day three was supposed to be a ferry back to the Korean main land, a trip to a Korean traditional culture folk village and a bus back to Seoul by 9pm. Day three did not happen as planned. Our 10 o’clock ferry back to the mainland was cancelled due to poor weather, and right away, we were informed that our prospects of making it back to Seoul that day was not good. And that was the end of relaxing island life. I, like 95% of the teachers on our trip, was required to be at work on Tuesday. This would be the first day of the new school year, so that means new students, new staff, and a lot of disorganization which I didn’t want to contribute to. Unfortunately, with no ferry, bridge or way of swimming back to shore, we were stuck on the island, and we all had to call in ‘stranded’ to work. And so, my school had to deal with one less teacher, and the weather was pretty poor so I spent my extra vacation day waiting in the rain, and sitting in the only café on the island, wondering if I’d get to work in time for my last class. At 4 pm we found out that the last ferry was cancelled, but we still had our hotel rooms and there was plenty of beer to treat our worries.

Surprisingly, I did arrive back in Ilsan on Tuesday just in time to jump into a classroom and teach one block of grade 3. It seems I’d missed the most stressful day of the school year. But, the world didn’t end and I didn’t get fired, so that’s good news.



And now, we’ve arrived at March. Perhaps I’ll write that post sometime in April!