The Suncheon Bus Tour: So much fun

These were some fruit trees. I'm not sure what they're growing. Ah well.
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Well, I have had a very good week this week. I had my first week of teaching, and for the most part its going very well. I love my hours, and the students are pretty great (some of them are a pain, and rambunctious, but what can you expect from 8-12 year olds).

On Wednesday my boss took out all of the teachers for dinner to celebrate the end of midterms and to welcome me. Korean dinners are an interesting experience. I actually really enjoy them, but they're just so different. I must say that my chopstick skills have vastly improved. I have a steep learning curve. Although I will admit, I cheat and don't hold them exactly as everyone else does though. I just find that I have way more control my way. And besides, my whole life I've held a pencil wrong, and I apparently hold a crochet hook wrong too. So surprise surprise I don't hold chop sticks correctly. Alas.

You're eating Kimchi again? We just had it a half an hour ago

This was the roof of one of the buildings at Seonmsa temple. I thought the detailing was really cool.
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Anyways, after dinner the other teachers and I went out for beers. We were apparently supposed to go for karaoke, but everyone just decided to keep the truth from the boss. Works for me. I wasn't nearly drunk enough to sing in public. Anyways, we went for drinks and just after eating this big meal, they ordered dried fish (which I didn't have the guts to try, some things you just know), dried Octapus (which I did had the guts to try, and was surprisingly delicious, I must say). I thought the Octapus would be disgusting, but I actually enjoyed it, and it complimented the beer very well. Oh yeah, and then they ordered a giant plate of fruit, and breaded shrimp, and...wait for it... Kimchi. I laughed at them and said "You're eating Kimchi again? We just had it a half an hour ago". It also surprised me that they ordered so much food after we had just eaten dinner. So, I told the girls that Ryan had mentioned that I should get a Korean name when I'm here, and they all like the sound of that, so that sat around debating what to name me. They asked when my birthday was, and so then they decided on Ta Lae because it means Azaelia, and Azaelias bloom in March here. Cute eh? I liked it.

This is just one of the many buildings at Seonmsa, I liked the composition of the photo though.
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I had asked the girls how to get to the Nagan folk village and songgwasa temple, and one of them suggested the Suncheon city tour, which is a free bus tour that takes you to some of Suncheon's most interesting places. So Lisa, whose english is second best (Eun's is best) kindly made me a reservation, and wrote down where I needed to go and all my information. So nice.

So yesterday morning I set my alarm (which is shockingly loud by the way. I hate it. Its very aesthetically cute, but so irritating to use. Fortunately I don't need it very often on account of going to work at 3:00). And I went on my way to the bus tour. I thought it might be riddled with senior citizens, but this was not, in fact, the case. There were people my age, parents with their kids, people a little younger than me, and of course, all Korean. It is Sunday today and I haven't seen another Westerner since last monday. he was a very nice, very obviously gay man who taught english classes at the Korean women's cultural centre right around the corner.

more pictures from the temple. It was so beautiful, I couldn't get enough.
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Anyways, our first stop was a rather boring museum, but it only cost about $1.50 to go inside, and it might have been interesting to people who could read and understand Korean, which as you know, I do not. Although my reading skills (phonetically) are coming along nicely. We then went to the fields of Suncheon bay, and it was very pretty. This was a brief stop, as was the first. Together they amounted to half an hour. 20 minutes in the museum, ten minutes taking pictures at the bay.

Seonmsa temple
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The next stop was the Seonmsa temple, which was very beautiful. You can hike from one side of the mountain at the Seonmsa temple to the other to the Songgwasa temple, but we didn't do that. We wandered around, and saw monks and all sorts of interesting things. What surprised me was seeing monks driving cars and such. I didn't expect them to live with any technological luxuries. Perhaps a little naive of me. We stayed at the temple for an hour and a half, and then went on to the Nagan folk village.

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At the folk village, there happened to be the Namdo food festival on, which was packed with people, and there were many cheap food items to be bought, but in the end, I only had something that I still can't even describe, although good, and not fishy, and grilled corn on the cob on a stick. hehehe... The folk village was beautiful, and I found an amazing pottery shop where everything was crazy cheap. I almost bought a piece for my mom, but realized I'd have no way to possibly transport it back home. So after two hours there, we loaded back onto the bus (which I almost missed because I couldn't find it), and headed back to Suncheon. All in all, it was quite a cool day and I enjoyed myself very much. I'm not going to put all my pictures on this sight, but I've made a yahoo photo album which I'll invite you folks to. I must do that now. Love you all!

This is in the Nagan folk village. This is the only folk village in Korea in which people still live, and the best preserved fortress town.
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Ash