Today is the last day of work before Golden Week. What does that mean? It means that today is the last day before a glorious ten day vacation, seven of those days which I’ll spend in South Korea. EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! How exciting is that? For those of you who don’t know, here’s a little breakdown of our trip:
(BTW, for those of you who are still concerned about our safety in South Korea, DON’T be. Not only have tensions calmed down, but the latest report from the State Department is that there is NO travel warning for Americans living in or visiting South Korea.)
We’re going to spend Saturday night at Melissa’s house because bright and early on Sunday morning we’re off to Fukuoka to catch our ferry. Since our ferry leaves the port at 8:30, we have to leave Hitoyoshi by 5 AM. Yikes! However, it’s a three hour ferry ride to Busan, Korea, so we’ll have time to nap. Once we hit Busan, it’s another three hours by train to Seoul. Once we check into our hotel, we’ll still have a few hours to explore before it’s night time. On Monday, I booked us a tour to the “World’s Most Dangerous Place”….the DMZ. Going to the border between North and South Korea is the one thing I DEFINITELY wanted to do while in Korea. Then Tuesday we’re touring Seoul more, Wednesday we’re off to Busan, Thursday a hike to some temple in Daegu, and Friday and Saturday we’re touring Busan. One of those days in Busan is definitely going to be a BEACH day because Busan is known for its beautiful beaches on the edge of the city. HURRAY! Then Sunday we’re taking the ferry back to Fukuoka, and (bonus!) once we get back home, we still have the last holiday of Golden Week, Monday the 6th, to rest up from our travels.
In other unrelated news, I got great news this week. I’m going to apply to Teach for America for the 2014-2015 academic year, but applications aren’t available yet. However, if you go to the website, you can sign up to be notified when the application is ready. It’s kind of like a pre-application deal because it asked a few basic questions, and I uploaded my resume. This happened a few weeks ago. Fast forward to this week. I received a personal email from a TFA recruiter, and I KNOW that it wasn’t just a mass email that was sent out to a hundred other people because she referred to me teaching at Murray. She said that she thought I would make a strong candidate for TFA and put me in touch with a TFA alum who I could talk to. Maybe I’m overanalyzing it, but I was tickled PINK with this. I haven’t even applied to the program, but I already have people wanting to talk to me! Hurray!
So…..I promised at the beginning of the week to tell about last Sunday. I’m going to be brief, so here goes: It was a busy but wonderful day. We started the day bright and early at 7:45 and made our way to Hitoyoshi for Mass. On the way, I saw the most gloriously deep purple irises along the side of the road. While I would have enjoyed stopping to pick a few, I don’t think the owner of the garden would have enjoyed me doing that. We also saw a MONKEY on the road. While monkeys do live around here, they are rather shy and don’t tend to show themselves very often. This monkey was casually strolling across the road, and as we approached it, he glared at us as if we were ruining his Sunday morning walk.
After Mass, we met Mollee and grabbed snacks and a lunch to take to the river. We parked at her house and walked thirty minutes down the road to get to a nice private riverside beach that was perfect for us! We spent the next couple of hours lounging around, eating, tossing rocks in the river, and even playing “baseball”. Ian found a bamboo pole, and I pitched rocks to him. It’s maybe not the smartest idea I’ve ever had, but it certainly was funny! The pole eventually broke, and by that time, it was time to leave.
Since Ian and I had separate plans for the evening, he took the car, and I rode with Mollee. Ian picked up Melissa and joined Sara in Nishiki to go to a garden party with some of Sara’s friends while Mollee, Brian, and I Skyped Ana and had a writing workshop that night. Before that, though, Mollee and I went to Green Palace. She had never seen the boob shrine in Yunomae, and I promised to take her. I’m so glad that we went, too because the azaleas were in full bloom and were absolutely gorgeous! Pinks, purples, whites, reds, fuchsias, magentas, scarlets, and lavenders burst into full bloom against the mountainside. It was beautiful!
A couple of my ES students saw us going across the suspension bridge, and they followed us from a distance. Mollee said, “I think some of your students are following us,” so I turned around and asked if the girls would like to join (instead of stalking) us. They happily agreed and caught up to us. While it was a little weird visiting the boob shrine with two 6th graders, Mollee finally got to see it! In addition, after we play a quick game of tag. Playing with 6th graders is A LOT different from playing with 3rd graders I normally play with. Those girls were QUICK! I could barely tag one of them without turning around and becoming “it” again. Somewhere along the way, I cut my finger, and Mollee pointed it out so that I didn’t get it on my clothes. It didn’t hurt, so I wasn’t that worried about it and was just going to let it run its course. However, the girls were VERY concerned. They immediately began looking for tissues in their bags, but when they couldn’t find any, they led me up to the bathroom so that I could wash it and wrap toilet paper around it. Gosh…..6th grade girls care more about me than me!
Our writing workshop went well. Mollee made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and I had made a strawberry shortcake. I know that peanut butter and jelly doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but when you can’t remember the last time you’ve had one, believe me when I say it was THE BEST. After we had workshopped each person’s story, I had to pick up Ian in Nishiki. Mollee dropped me off, and I drove Melissa and him home. Once we got home that night, I prepared my stuff for Monday morning and my last week of work before Golden Week. Hurray!
Alright. My work day is coming to an end. EEEEEEEE! The next time I blog, I’ll have lots of fun Korean things to talk about. Just for fun…….I’ll leave you with a random goat picture. For whatever reason, one of my nursery schools has a pet goat. He bleats at me every time I walk by him. Happy weekend, everyone!!! :D :D :D
No comments:
Post a Comment