Seoul Soul

This last weekend we went up to Seoul...I know it's been a couple of days since we got back but I've been busy! The only reason I have time to write right now is because I'm on call for this class period and nobody called in sick! :)

We left the village on Friday afternoon and went into Daegu to take the KTX up to Seoul. The KTX is a super fast train! The fastest we went was 305 km an hour which is equivalent to about 190 miles an hour. So on the KTX it only took us 2 hours to get all the way up to Seoul. There is a slow train too, which is cheaper, but also takes about 4 hours. The KTX feels like a plane inside. The seats are exactly like in an airplane but there is no annoying wait time for take off and landing and such! The ride is also incredibly smooth for a train. The funny thing is that when we got back on to go from Seoul to Daegu, we were going backwards! They don't turn the train around so you are sitting facing the same direction but traveling backwards. So I traveled backwards for two hours..what a trip!

We get into Seoul station and go straight down into the subway. Now this is the first time I have ever ridden a subway and it was a little overwhelming at first. You go in and have to look at a map to figure out where you are going. Then you have to buy a ticket and make sure you get on the train going the right direction! The first time we got on we almost went the wrong direction but a nice guy who overheard us told us to go to the other side.

Donghwasa Temple and Bath House

Yesterday we had another full day of exploration and fun! We got up early so we could go out hiking...and we had to get up early because it took almost two hours to get to the mountain where Chris wanted to go. Maybe next time I'll go to the mountain that's not quite so far away. First we had to take the free shuttle bus into downtown Daegu, which is about 40 minutes, and then we had to take a city bus up into the mountains which was another 40 minutes at least.

The mountain was nothing like I had expected. There were little towns all over the place with restaurants and convenience stores and a lot of people were driving right up to the temple. The temples were all full of very intricate wood work and paintings. Many of the buildings were newly constructed or under construction so who knows how old most of the buildings actually were. But the informational sign said that the Donghwasa temple represents the Buddhists of the Silla Dynasty and it dates back to 430 A.D. The area is still used as a place of worship by many as we saw when we visited.

Downtown Daegu

Since we only had a half day on Friday, (all the kiddos go back home!) we decided to get off campus and do something fun! At first we were going to go to Costco because Mary wanted to buy a camera, but then we decided she could find a camera elsewhere and that we should go into Daegu. First we took the shuttle bus to Yeungjin college, the parent school of the Daegu English Village and from there we took a taxi into the downtown area.

Talk About Exhausted...

Hello all....well I have been in Korea for 3 days now and it has been a total whirlwind! On Monday, we spent most of the day training and we observed one class. On Tuesday, we lesson planned, taught two classes and debriefed for a period and went shopping in town. Today, I taught a full load- 4 90 minute classes. Tomorrow I will teach the same, only a different class and I have to get the lesson plan together tonight! Most new teachers that come here get a full week's worth of training before they start teaching, but they are so short staffed right now that they just had to throw us in the mix and hope we survived. With the way I feel now, I hope I'm still alive by the end of tomorrow too!

Backtracking a little bit....the 12 hour plane flight was miserable. Twelve hours is a really long time to be stuck in a tiny plane seat eating yucky food.

On My Way

I have finally started my journey ! I am sitting in the San Francisco airport with a five hour layover and am trying to stay awake.

It all started at 3:20 this morning when I got up to drive to the airport in Colorado Springs. Our flight left at 6:30 am.