The Pumpkin Snatcher!

Time to sum up 21 days: October 23-Nov 13

Week One: Campus friends, just  a stone's throw away -- Even in Korea!

Fellow Bio major from UIUC! Ming Jeong

I visited Pusan/Busan  City for the second time. It is the Southern-most city in Korea & the second largest city;  mostly due to its large shipping industry/ports.  On this visit I was able to meet up with some fellow Fulbright ETAs and my friend who graduated from U of I as well, Ming. We all hung out on a beach after the annual fireworks festival. The festival was SO crowded. I think there were 100,000+ people there (but my memory is vague...this may be very wrong). Ignoring the exact number, the point is when it ended I was literally standing chest-to-chest with random strangers, barely able/unable to move for 20-30minutes. Our group held hands and tried to stay together once the flood gates broke and people rapidly began leaving. Prior to this craziness though, the fireworks were REALLY enjoyable...

The one non-blurry picture!

One of Busan's many famous beaches. It was a little rainy --clearly we didn't mind!

I stayed at Ming's home that night and met his family. It was nice to be welcomed into his home. They were really great!  (his dad was out and is thus not pictured):

Note how Ming is still supporting U of I --even in Korea. Way to be loyal! :)

 Continuing with week one...(it was  a big week!)
 

HALLOWEEN!
This spectacular holiday is what inspired my blog title. Here's the story: My wonderful mother shipped a package of Halloween decorations and candy to me --enough candy for all of my students! Anyway, in this box of goodies was a foam jack-o-lantern that lights up. This is a new concept for the students. If you think about it, carving pumpkins is a rather strange tradition if you don't have any cultural context in which to place it. So, I was planning to raffle off the jack-o-lantern once I introduced all my classes to Halloween. The first day I was talking about Halloween I showed students the prize. I put it in my classroom behind my desk...and...lo and behold a pumpkin snatcher stole it that night after I left for the day! All that was left of it was the tag lying carelessly thrown on the ground. I know it wasn't MY students -- they would never do that -- so someone went into my room and took it. Haha, honestly, I don't know who it was that stole it...it is still missing. I just hope whoever has it is enjoying it thoroughly.

For my lesson on Halloween the students learned that kids in the US wear in costumes, ring doorbells, say "Trick or treat!," and get free candy. My students did various reading , speaking, and writing games to get down the basics of Halloween. At the end of class I left time for teams of students to compete with each other in this classic Halloween game:

Mummy!

Some teams did better than others...

After cleaning up, the 'Exit Ticket' was to show me their notes, say "Trick or treat!," pick some candy, and then they were free to go. They loved me --and my mom -- every class said something along the lines of, "Ooohhh! Canddyyy! We love your mom! Thank you to your mom!"

Weekend Number TWO: Friends, Maple Trees, and coffee in JeongEup City--my stomping grounds!

Friends came to my city, JeongEup, to celebrate the changing of the seasons, because there is an annual Maple Tree and Chrysanthemum Festival here. It was amazing to hang out with everyone; show them the town, grab food, and just enjoy down time. At the festival we saw bull "fighting." Not in the way most people from the West would think about it. This is two bulls actually fighting each other...though, when we were there, they didn't want to fight. They just stood near each other looking confused and sometimes would nuzzle each others faces. It was more cute than a testosterone-driven bloody battle to the death one might initially have expected.  In town, we also stumbled upon the best coffee shop I have ever been to in my entire life! The owner speaks great English and he is a barista extraordinaire (he went to Italy to learn about coffee and frequents international coffee shows).

The Bulls

COMPLIMENTS of the owner -- Free cup of LOVE for the foreigners!

  We all shared the cup because (1) the coffee was amazing and (2) it was fun to talk about "sharing the love" with each other. We managed to finish 95% of the coffee and still leave the word "LOVE" at the bottom...

Sam, Em, Becky, and Sarah (L-R): The four lovely ladies who stayed over at my host family's place. The host fam kindly invited them over. We happily enjoyed cereal in the morning -Thanks again, MOM! Cereal: One of the many treats in that package! Did I mention my mom is wonderful...oh right. I forgot.

Me: Day Two at the coffee shop :)

Weekend the THIRD: Enjoying the moment, nostalgia, and making more memories....time not soon to be forgotten

Jeong-man and I; Train Station in Gyeongju City

I visited my friend Jeongman in his home town: Gyeongju City. It is a really famous city because 100s of years ago Korea was split into three kingdoms and Gyeongju used to be the capital of the Silla Kingdom. It is my favorite city in Korea. In 2008 I came to Korea and stayed with Jeongman and his parents. When his parents heard I had come back this year they were anxious to see me again. I was supposed to see them back in October, as mentioned in my September 28th blog post, but it didn't work out.

Jeongman traveled three hours from his university, where he is a very busy senior in engineering, to meet me. Upon my arrival to his home his mom greeted me with a kind smile and a hug. Memories from my last visit came back in stops and fits as I settled into his home again. There was a lot of down time where Jeongman and I just chatted, wanting to get updated with everything we have been missing out on from each others quickly changing lives. We hiked to get water from the mountain spring near his home (not that they don't have running water, but Koreans really appreciate the value of "nature's bounty")...the weather was perfect. It was the most relaxing time I have had in Korea thus far -- aside from my time in 2008! We reached the top of the mountain and just yelled and yelled, laughing at each other and listening for our echos...

One stop on our way to collect water

Jeongman and I

Weekend the Last: Hiking with the TaiKwonDo crew!

Do you remember the story I mentioned earlier about the TaiKwonDo teacher who I now play my horn with/get free TaiKwonDo lessons from? His name is Jaegwan--I'll just call him Jae. Well, all of his students love me, especially after today. 13 of us piled into Jae's wife's minivan and drove to a famous mountain called Mai Mountain [ sounds like "My"]. We arrived at 10:30am and went hiking until around 2pm. Here's the crew:

Jaegwan, his son and daughter

Me and the kids!

With the exception of Jae's daughter --the little spitfire who kept up on the hike with people 5x her age and 2x her height -- the girls were really shy at first because I was a "foreigner." They come from a town even smaller than the one I work/live in. Their English was awesome though, so once they realized I was not going to bite, they actually helped in translating for me and Jae --Jae speaks almost no English; though, we have few problems getting our point across some how. Sometimes that just happens. Some people cannot speak English and I cannot understand what they are trying to tell me very well, but others who speak no English can get their point across clear as day (almost). It's strange, but very interesting...part of me wants to do a formal  research project on this...

This was one of my highlights from the hike. I saw this old, OLD OOLLLD guy and burst out laughing...he is proof that English can just be a trendy thing, and sometimes people have no idea what they are wearing (well, I assume that's the case here).

Exhibit A: Old Man in Hat at a rest stop

Pics from the hike:

These kids are AWESOME!

Jaegwan and I -- One of Mai Mountain's two peaks. It's higher than it looks here. We are actually at the edge of a cliff...

There is this little village pressed between two small mountains. It's awesome. Check out all the stone-pile pillars in the background!

Post-Hiking ;-) This only lasted for about 30 minutes before everyone in the car was awake again and bursting with energy!

Scenery on the drive back home. Jaegwan's home town

Scenery on the way back: Beautiful Sunset

Well -- I am sure that was plenty of news for you. Glad you are keeping up with my travels! Leave me some feedback below. I hope you enjoy Thanksgiving! It's right around the corner!