Hawaii Pictures and New Apartment

I got back a few days ago from an awesome vacation in Hawaii with my family! I already miss them but at least I’ve been busy since I got back. I got to the airport near Seoul around 5:30 Saturday afternoon~ Dave met me there and we went straight to my new apartment in Gwangju. My new mentor teacher, Cathy, met us at the Gwangju bus terminal at 11:00 at night and took us to the new place. She is super sweet and extremely helpful! The apartment is close to the same size as my old one but broken up into different rooms, which is nice. It was not nearly up to Marsh clean standards but it was too late to do anything about that so we just went in and passed out (on the floor… I’m working on getting a bed).

Sunday we woke up early and went to Mokpo to pack up my old apartment. Justina, my old co-teacher, and her father came all the way from Gwangju so I would have a car to move! Koreans might actually be the most helpful people I have ever met. Since Sunday I’ve been scrubbing every inch of the apartment and unpacking the numerous boxes of stuff that I have accumulated over the past 5 months. Honestly, I have no idea where it all came from.

Yesterday I also went to Hanjae Elementary to meet some of the faculty and kids. They took pictures of me fake-teaching 3^rd grade for either a yearbook or a school magazine…I didn’t quite catch what she was explaining. The school and everyone in it seems really nice, I even have an English classroom!!

As of about 20 minutes ago I think I have finally finished unpacking and cleaning everything, though I still can’t get some of the mold out of the bathroom.

Here are some pictures of my new place:

 Bathroom~ sink shower may be the one downfall of this apartment.

 Separate kitchen

 Full size closet

 Separate laundry room

And my temporary bed

And my many albums of Hawaii!! :

Hawaii~ Days 1 and 2

Hawaii~ Day 3

Hawaii~ Day 4

Hawaii~ Days 5 and 6

Enjoy!

xox

광주 (Gwangju)

I’m moving to Gwangju!! I know it has been way to long since I’ve posted on here but with this new development I’ve been kept pretty busy!

Korea is divided into 8 different provinces and within those provinces there are some self-governing cities. Gwangju is a self-governing city surrounded by the Jeollanam-do province. It is a huge city about 50 minutes north of Mokpo (where I currently live), with easy access to the rest of the country. Here is a map to explain it a little better:

Usually in TaLK if you start with a 6-month contract and extend to a year, you have to stay with the same school for the whole year~ BUT since I have a 4 hour commute every day my PoE Coordinator felt bad and decided to move me! I will be transferring to Hanjae Elementary just north of Gwangju and will be living in Ilgok-dong, Gwangju. Also, Dave is applying for 학원 (hagwon or private school) jobs in Gwangju so our commute is going to go from 3 and a half hours to 10 minutes which will be really nice!


For more good news I'm going to Hawaii this Friday (July 20th)!! Unfortunately this means I only have today through Thursday to pack for Hawaii and pack my entire apartment to be ready to move on Sunday the 29th when I get back. I can’t wait to see the family and Hawaii but until Friday I am going to have a very busy week!

As far as traveling goes I've mostly stayed in Jeollanam-do for the past month but last weekend (14^th and 15^th) I went with Adventure Korea to the Boryeong Mud Festival! There must have been 50 or so TaLK scholars there with the same tour group and it was basically the foreigner Spring Break of South Korea. Here was our itinerary:

	Destination	:	Daecheon beach,Boryeong in Chungcheongnam-Do
	Departure Point	:	Hongik Univ. Subway stn(Line.2 Exit 1)/ Express bus terminal stn(Line 3,7,9 Exit 3)
	Includes	:	Transportation(A chartered bus),accommodation,Mud beach experience fee(extreme training
	Description
	Adventure Korea is gearing up for the annual MUD FESTIVAL. This is the biggest festival in all of South Korea and Adventure Korea has been taking people down south to play in the mud since 2003. With all our experience we know what you want and what to expect. So sign up and let us take you to a place where you’ll find it is the muddier the better. The festival is held over a period of nine days. Therefore we will be taking two trips, the first one is on Saturday 14 - Sunday 15 and the second one will be Saturday 21 - Sunday 22(http://adventurekorea.com/ourAdventure/calendar_content.asp?id=calendar&RowNo=699). You can choose which ever weekend suits your schedule best. On Saturday we will travel down to Boryeong. and go to the actual mud beach for the silt extreme training. Here you get the chance to dress in military gear, compete in races, wrestling, muddy games and much, much more. This is a special extra activity that we have built into our schedule only for ADVENTURE KOREA members(check the pictures above). And it’s well worth it. Get muddy, make loads of friends and have a blast before we even get to the festival area. After checking into our hotels, you will have free time to explore the festival area, and all that Daecheon has to offer. Daecheon is a beautiful sandy beach town, so all the mud for the festival is trucked in especially. Paint yourself in mud of various colours, wrestle your friends or total strangers, tug-of-war games, and the various mud slides, but watch out or you may be put into the mud prison. Why not pose for the photo competitions, our AK members have been selected for brochures etc in the past – maybe it will be your turn this year. Don’t forget the massages, crafts you can make, the gorgeous sauna, and so much more. At night after the muddy part of the festival is over there will be a concert and fireworks. Here you will see some of the best fireworks displays in Korea, and you will be guaranteed a great view from the beach. On Sunday you will have more free time to get muddy again, or just relax on the beach, before we make our way back to the buses and back to Seoul. This really is the festival not to be missed, and is world famous. The mud at the festival is very good for your skin, so save a bit of money and give yourself a fun full body mud mask. Come on and get down and dirty with Adventure Korea.
	What to bring	:	Toiletries, sandals, Towel,swim suit and extra socks(for extreme training)
	Schedule	:	Day 1 07:30am Depart from Hongik Univ. Subway station(Sub Line 2,Exit 1) 08:00am Pick up at Express bus terminal Subway station(Sub Line3,7/ Exit 3) * Please come to the pick up site on time as we are leaving on time and please let us know which site you want to be picked up from those two sites above through e-mail 11:00am Arrive at Daecheon beach 11:20am Unpack our bag at our accommodation 11:40pm Partake in the Festival -  Street Parade( Marching band, theme cars, performance groups etc) -  Mud sliding -  Mud wrestling 13:30pm  Move to the actual mud beach by our chartered bus 14:00pm  Experience the Silt extreme training course -  Silt basic training & Mud wrestling -  Cavalry battles -  Human pyramid game -  and much more 16:30pm Partake in other Festival activities. 20:00pm Free time - Explore the night Daecheon beach - Partake in the Mud fireworks fantasy Day2 08:30am Get up and go for a walk to the beautiful morning beach 09:30am Partake in the festival 11:00am Check out and put your bag in the bus 11:30pm Partake in the festival      Partake in any of your beach activities such as swimming,      Suntan and beach volleyball 16:00pm Depart for Seoul 19:30pm Arrive at Express bus terminal station 20:00pm Arrive at Hongik Univ. station

The festival itself was a blast even though monsoon season kept us pretty wet the whole time. Unfortunately I hurt my back pretty bad on the first day so I didn't get to participate in as much as I would have liked. While we were at the mud beach they had us split into teams to do various games and the first one our group did was mud wrestling. They had the girls go first and there were about 15 girls on each team in a mud pit surrounded by an inflatable ring. The goal was the throw as many of the opposing team members out of the ring as possible. After the first round the other team (dragons) still had 10 or so girls left vs my team (tigers) who only had 6 or 7. During the second round 3 girls ganged up to try to throw me out of the ring and that is when I destroyed my back. On the upside even with 3 on 1 they couldn't get me out of the ring, on the downside my team still lost. Even with a hurt back the whole thing was a blast and I will definitely be going back next year. 


This is a video Adventure Korea put together from this weekend, pictures to come:


2012 Mud Fest with Adventure Korea


Also, one of my friends made a video of our orientation and I wanted to share so you could see exactly how much fun it was J. A lot of 8^th gens were on 6 month contracts so they are getting ready to go home, I think this video shows just how close we all were and I am definitely going to miss everyone heading back to the states!


8th Gen Orientation, courtesy of John F. Scott


-xox