The “Business Trip” to the Cheongsong Office of Education

All English teachers of the Cheongsong region were in for a surprise today. We were all to go on a business trip to the Cheongsong Office of Education. The foreign English teachers and all Korean English teachers were to attend the unexpected meeting held by the Cheongsong English Department.

Upon arrival at the office, everyone was confused. No one knew exactly what was going on, so we all filed into the room where the meeting was to be held and waited. Finally, the head of the Cheongsong English Department greeted us with an exaggerated smile, and went on with the introductions in Korean. Then the meeting went on to the topic at hand, which had many of the Korean English teachers arguing. With all foreign English teachers confused and staring blankly into space, my high school co-teacher from Andeok School scurried over and began explaining the agenda of the meeting.

It turned out that the meeting had nothing to do with the foreign English teachers but was set for all of the Korean English teachers. We (the foreign teachers) were just invited along to have a chance to meet each other (but by that time, five out of the six of us had already met). After forty-five minutes into the meeting, the six of us were politely shooed out of the room (after everyone realized that we had no place in the meeting) and we waited in another room for forty-five minutes, discussing how ‘dynamic’ Korea was. We had plenty of stories to share…all of the ups and downs that we had had for the past seven months...and what we were looking forward to for the next five in our teaching contract.

At 5:30pm, the Korean English teachers concluded their meeting. What had taken an hour and a half to discuss was all about forming an unnecessary English teachers’ council, through which the English teachers could discuss and improve the English program. A valiant effort on the side of the Cheongsong English Department for trying to improve the English program, however, all of the Korean English teachers were spread out across more than an hour’s drive of schools, and none of them had the time to meet once a week due to supplementary classes after school. Unfortunately, this did not go well with the Cheongsong head, and the teachers had to nominate one person to organize such meetings. Mrs. Na, my main co-teacher last year, was in charge of the English teacher’s council last year, but since having circulated to another school due to their 5-year-limit policy, the spot was open. The teachers automatically chose Ken’s co-teacher who had the most teaching experience out of all teachers present. Now she has another ordeal to manage every week on top of her hectic schedule.

I think we should get paid overtime for those one and a half hours :).

- Jess

Adventure Map for KenandJess2go (version 2)

*Added "Yeongdeok" and "Yeongyang"!

[caption id="attachment_706" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Adventure Map for KenandJess2go (version 2)"][/caption]

Adventure Map for KenandJess2go

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Day Trip to Cheongsong

Mr. Young, one of my coworkers at Bunam Middle School, picked Jess and I up at the Cheongsong bus terminal. His apartment is in Cheongsong, so when he heard that we were interested in visiting the town, he quickly offered to show us around.

He drove us through the city, and pulled into an absolutely beautiful restaurant, perched on a hilltop in the northern outskirts. The architecture was obviously designed to mimic a patch of giant mushrooms, with huge mushroom-cap rooftops and curved walls. The whole building was painted earth tone colours, and the dining area had huge windows overlooking the beautiful scenery of the region.

His wife and son greeted us at the front door, and we headed inside. A huge lunch, still steaming, had only moments before been served in anticipation of our arrival. We sat down and enjoyed a mouth-watering meal of steamed-chicken, rice porridge soup (made with mineral water from one of the natural springs in the area), Korean pancakes (an assortment of vegetables mixed in with a dough) dipped in soy sauce, and a wide variety of traditional side dishes.

After our meal, we drove out to a small traditional village (which at one time, housed the richest family in the area), and spent hours walking around and talking about Korean life then and now. We knew that it was going to be one of the last beautiful weekends, so we spent as much time as we could just walking around and enjoying the sites.

At the end of the day, he drove us back to the bus terminal, and we headed back home.

Our visit may have been short, but it was the perfect way to spend a nice quiet Saturday…

- Ken

Juwangsan National Park with the Andeok Teachers

Today was just like yesterday. The Andeok students had their midterm exams, so both the students and the teachers could take an early leave after lunch. However, this glorious day, all of us Andeok teachers would set forth towards Juwangsan National Park to hike around the splendiferous Cheongsong mountains.

When I entered the teacher’s lounge this morning, all of the teachers were decked out in sweatpants, plaid-patterned clothing, and North Face gear. I guess my work clothes – my grey dress pants, crimson dress shirt, and black high-heeled shoes – weren’t appropriate for the workplace today. I quickly got permission during my break to sprint home and change into some more suitable clothes.

The 2:00pm ‘the period is over!’ tune rang throughout the bare hallways. The energy-drained students suddenly shot out of their classrooms with enough adrenaline to revive the dead. It was the implicit signal for the Andeok teachers - it was time to leave.

All of the teachers split into five organized groups to carpool. Of course, organized meaning ‘according to age’. I was put into the young female teachers’ car, and we headed out to Cheongsong. The following forty-five minutes were wholly filled with questions about Ken, school gossip, and a short teachers’ English lesson.

Once we arrived at the park, the male and female teachers immediately split up. The male teachers set off before the female teachers, speed-walking on one of the dirt paths. Within a few minutes, they were out of sight.

Us female teachers, however, took a much slower, snail-paced approach to our “hike”, stopping to take over a hundred photos of us posing in modelesque lines with hands over our hips (I guess the stereotype of Asian tourists taking a billion photos is partly true :)). I felt like I was thirteen, giddily laughing and making jokes with the other teachers. Candids were extremely popular, as three-quarters of the photos had us talking in mid-sentence, curled over laughing, or making some ridiculous juvenile face.

***

At the third waterfall (there are three of them), we finally met up with the brawny male teachers. The Vice Principal, alongside the Principal, and other male teachers at his side, were relaxing on the lookout of the third waterfall. It had rained the day before, and the water wasn’t trickling this time around, but it was gushing crystalline water over the small edge of the mossy rocky cliff.

Once we took a fair amount of teacher photos, the male teachers decided that it was time to eat dinner. Dynamic Korea…I had only learned right then of the dinner, and had to call Ken to tell him to fend for supper all by himself (thank-goodness he’s an excellent cook :)).

***

(At the restaurant)

We arrived at one of Cheongsong’s famous restaurants, where the food was made with the natural mineral spring water pumped from the mountain scenically backdropping it. The teachers and I exited the car and hungrily went into the restaurant. I apprehensively entered the dining room…unsure of how much soju awaited me… Right away, the Vice Principal handed me a glass and said, “You must be thirsty! Take this, and be refreshed!”

I didn’t drink it right away, because all of a sudden, the room became eerily silent. All of the teachers were looking at me as if I was just offered poison, and the Vice Principal had a sly smile on his face. Oh well…bottoms up.

What went in my mouth tasted like liquid iron. “Mmmm….” I said, trying to sound like I enjoyed it. The Vice Principal laughed huskily and then, all of the teachers laughed furiously. This must’ve been a precontrived joke he had set up. Young-hee (my co-teacher) said, “You know, even though he is the Vice Principal, you don’t have to do everything he says.

Turns out that the unknown tonic I had voluntarily drunk was the mineral spring water that was so famous around here, claimed to be ‘good for your health’. I think I’ll pass next time.

Before we received our first bit of food, the Vice Principal and other male teachers, once again, offered me soju. I guess my composure while drinking gave them a challenge, so they kept on pouring the clear, vile liquid.

What we had next was spectacular. It was another of Cheongsong’s famous foods, which was a plate of little pieces of chicken, fried in a spiced, red-hot glaze that was so delicious. We ate that with the numerous side dishes, sesame leaves, and leaves of lettuce. What came after that was, again, another of Cheongsong’s favourites. The ginseng-chicken stew. It was glutenous white rice and dried jujubes, stuffed into a chicken and cooked into a broth with vegetables and ginger. Quite amazing, but I was stuffed, and so were the other teachers.

***

Again, I rode in the car, designated, ‘the young teachers’ car’. It was pretty dark…almost like a midnight dark, and our driver, a young teacher herself, sped around the roads wrapping the mountains, only turning on her headlights seconds before turning a corner. I feared for my life amidst the cheerful talk and laughter given off by the teachers. My fear evolved into terror after hearing, “Hey, she’s doing pretty well after only two months with her license!”

I arrived safely home, making sure to double-check that all my body parts were intact. Despite drinking down metal, and almost being killed on the road, it was simply another divine experience with the Andeok teachers.

- Jess

Juwangsan National Park (Cheongsong Mountains)

I had just met Casey about a week ago and of course since then, we had made plans to go out. His friend, Leylanie, was coming to Andeok to visit him and we all decided to take a nice trip over to the ever-famous Juwangsan National Park (in the infamous Cheongsong……apples…remember?). Ken and I had never been, but we had heard all the rave from the teachers that this park was famous for its mountains and especially popular to visit for its fall scenery during the changing of the tree’s colours.

We met Casey and Leylanie in Casey’s sportin’ crimson car (yes, he bought a car for one year in Korea :)) and drove through the winding road for 35 minutes to Juwangsan National Park.

Before the entrance to the park, there was a little tourist village, enclosing tons of restaurants and food stands. They were selling dried and fresh jujubes, boocheemgae (Korean vegetable and meat pancakes), and plenty of other specialty foods. The restaurant owners kept eyeing us, calling out to us, and gesturing us to come into their restaurants. “Have lunch in my restaurant!” they’d say, already preparing our tables as we refused. Ken bought a bag of jujubes for us to snack-on (obviously he needed snacks for the hike), and we only noticed later on, that there was some fresh green mold on some of them.

We hiked on the trails in the park, viewing the many famous Juwangsan mountains (all of which had striking facial features), only making it to the three drizzling waterfalls and one of the caves (containing a mossy-rocky corridor through which Casey and Ken daringly climbed up, and disappeared…they say they built a good-fortune tower of rocks, but who knows…). The waterfalls didn’t quite compare to the Niagara Falls (probably a million times smaller in comparison…), but the scenery, greenery, and lack of safety-rails around the cliff-edges made the hike quite exciting.

As we were making our way back to the entrance, we met another Native English teacher, also enjoying the park’s trails and sounds. Apparently, there was much, much more to the park passed the three waterfalls, where the hikes would’ve been especially beautiful and fulfilling, and would’ve made us sweat after that point. Oh darn it.

Once again, we came across the vibrant, colourful strip of restaurants and food stands. As the ajummas and ajushees rushed towards us, beckoning us inside, other more strange and appealing items caught our eyes.

We almost walked past one stand, turned our heads, and noticed something that looked like a white peanut brittle (the old ajumma was smashing it to pieces with her hammer). This is Korea. Of course it wasn’t peanut brittle. The brick of what appeared to be solid white clay was in fact, a chunk of sesame-nut taffy. It was about an inch-and-a-half thick, and broke to pieces when struck with the hammer. We peered over the counter, and the teacher who had previously joined us, pointed out of curiousity at broken brick laying on the countertop. The ajumma quickly picked up the taffy and handed it to the teacher. Lesson learned. Never point to anything, just for curiousity’s sake.

Continuing on our walk back to the park’s entrance, we saw the same rice-popping-cracker-machine Ken held dear to his heart. The ajumma immediately saw that we were interested in her product (even though we weren’t) and handed us some sample rice cracker discs. As we happily enjoyed our free samples, she held out her hand to me. “Two thousand won,” she asked. Well, I guess nothing’s free. I picked out W2,000 from my wallet and handed it to her. Miscommunication. She handed me the bag of rice cracker discs that I had unintentionally purchased.

So, we walked, snacking on the massive bag of popped rice. There must’ve been only a teaspoon of rice in each cracker, and a cup of rice making up the entire bag (rice is so versatile, isn’t it?). Then, we pinpointed our lunch – not boocheemgae like everyone had recommended, but a heavenly stand full of golden double-battered corn dogs, chicken popcorn, and sugary coke-flavoured slushies. While we devoured our traditional Korean lunch (just joking), we rested our legs over a tiny dam just outside of the park.

What a great experience. Thanks to Casey, we got a chance to see what was special to our area (other than the apples), and it was definitely worth the trip, just to eat those sweet and savoury and not to mention delectable, corndogs and chicken popcorn.

- Jess