삼겹살, Tea and Bonfires.

 The weekend started out great!  I went out to dinner with my Korean friends from work, Hee Jung and Ji Hyoon.    We had samgyupsal 삼겹살.  I love grilling the meat at the table, it is sizzling hot and tastes very fresh.  
I am always amazed at these BBQ restaurants.  I have never been to a place like this in America, but would love to go if I can find one.  This will definitely be something I miss when I leave Korea.  It seems very unsafe to me though, which may mean that we simply don't have places where you can grill your own food.  :(

On Saturday the 28th, I was invited to go on a Korean Culture tour. We started in a town called Mungyeong, at the annual tea festival.  Mungyeong is known for the traditional ceramics that were made there.  As we were walking up to the village, we noticed some monkeys on the other side of the stream.  We wandered over there to say hi.  :)

 Above is the view looking back to the entrance, it was a beautiful valley.  

Below, we got in on some free snacks before our lunch!  A ball of rice and seaweed.  Delicious!

 More samgyupsal 삼겹살 but not quite as good as Friday night, but still good.  :)

On the right, in the lower right corner is a pink drink called makgeolli 막걸리.  It tasted a little strange and must have been fermented because it was effervescent.  But it was good. :)

 After lunch we took the bus to a place where we could ride rail bikes.  It was really fun and had beautiful scenery!  

 

 After the fieldtrip I went home to change, and then headed out to Dadaepo 다대포 beach for a bonfire with some friends.  On our way there we happened upon the end of the Fountain Show, which I can't wait to see in it's entirety.  The fire was already going, so we sat down and hung out.  

 

Once the group thinned out a bit, I took over the tending the fire.  My skills are a bit rusty, but I managed to bring the fire back around. Kept it going til we were all ready to head home, which was exactly what we needed.  :) 

 
 

Hello!
I hope that life is treating you well in your corner of the world.  :)

Another busy weekend under my belt.  On Wednesday my friend Hee Jung took me out for ice cream with the 7 students from her afternoon class.  She wanted them to have a chance to talk to the foreign teacher on a more one to one basis.  We had Baskin Robbins, with all different flavors of ice creams.
It was fun, but as I've noticed with most of my students, they are somewhat hesitant to talk with me.  Perhaps I can convince them that as excited as they are when I speak Korean, that is as happy as I am when they speak English.  I wish that you could hear the oohs and ahhs when I speak any sort of Korean.  It's one way to help me get to the students.

Thursday I had a killer headache, but decided to join my neighborhood Thursday night dinner group.  We had a great dinner and then went to this little bar about two blocks from my place.  I had a great time and got to meet some new people which was a lot of fun.

Friday night I went to my friend Georgina's house and we had a girls night in watching the new BBC version of Persuasion.  It was a wonderful night!
I woke up on Saturday to rain.  I was glad that I would be shopping in the underground mall and not out and about all day in the rain.  I met up with Desmond and Leslie for a little shopping.  Lunch, laughs and coffee later, I was on my way home for the evening.

Sunday was absolutely gorgeous!  It was a beautiful day and I was excited to go hiking.  I met up with some friends at Dongdaeshin, which is only a few subway stops away from Hadan where I live.  I must admit that I was a little nervous as I haven't been hiking here in Busan yet, and really haven't been working out too intensely.  The trail that we were on however was wide and well marked (in Korean) and while it was somewhat steep, it wasn't quite the 'hike' that I thought it would be.  Either way, the trees were lovely and there was the sound of rushing water in the background and the beauty of nature around us.  I had no idea that nature of that kind is available less than an hour from my apartment.  Truth be told, we were on the other side of the mountain that I live on.  If I walked to the trail on my side of the mountain, then it is probably only 15 minutes away or so.  I should probably check that out...

 We went to Jinhae on Saturday, April 7th, to experience the Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival.  The cherry blossoms were beautiful!  There was a lot of people there, but we were still able to see some beautiful blossoms and sights. 

There are so many beautiful views in Jinhae that it's hard to put the camera down for any time at all.   

Our day was a lot of fun, though at the end we nearly got stuck in Jinhae because there were so many people trying to return to Busan.  We ended up waiting for an hour or so for a taxi.  I was glad to be home for the evening though.  

Last week most schools in Busan had phy ed trials or tests.  The students were all required to participate and didn't have their standard classes.  This is Hee Jung and I outside enjoying a little fresh air and watching some of our students who participated in building rockets.  

Election Day in South Korea was on Wednesday, April 11th.  

It is a national holiday and we had the day off.  Tuesday evening, the day before the holiday, some of the other teachers invited me out to dinner with them.  We had Sashimi, which is raw fish.  I don't have much experience with sashimi, but am usually open to new things, so I figured I'd give it a try.  

Above left: Soju with spicy green peppers.  Above right: some of our sashimi.  So fresh that it was still moving on the plate.  I still am not sure how I feel about that...

On the left above is one of the other teachers at my school making Nigiri sushi for us at the table.  It was very good.  We played a drinking game that involved an iPhone app and a shot of soju and a piece of nigiri sushi.  

I finished the week of school with little ado.  

On Saturday the 14th, I joined in a walk that was put together by Mannam, a volunteer organization.  The walk was to remind us of the places that have suffered natural disasters.  It was a gorgeous walk and I got the chance to catch up with some friends that I haven't seen for a couple weeks.

 

 

 

Yesterday, my friend Vickie and I went to visit Beomeosa Temple.  It was a gorgeous temple - the first one that I have felt a spiritual connection with.  The other temples that I have visited here haven't had an impact on me.  But I loved the beauty of the mountains surrounding Beomeosa, it is so calming.  

 

 

After seeing the temple and how wonderful it was, we wandered into the

woods.  It was so peaceful, we sat and talked for a bit and decided to move on and get dinner somewhere.  

We bought some delicious strawberries on the way back to the subway, they smelled so good we couldn't resist!  

We ate at a BBQ place in Nampo, where you grill the food right at your table.  It was delicious, and just the right amount after our wanderings in the mountain in the afternoon!