Let It Be

Over the last 3-4 weeks I have been teaching my 5th and 6th graders the Beatles song "Let It Be."  I often adapt my guitar playing to the text book CD Rom songs, but the older students have little or no interest in these.  A little over a month ago my three co-teachers and I sat down and discussed several things about how we are teaching in the English department.

My biggest interest was the 6th graders, who are the toughest to teach.  They are the toughest to teach because they are the oldest students in the school; they are the toughest because they have a 'too cool for school' attitude; and they are tougher to 'entertain.'  I honestly knew I could have gotten by the way I was teaching, but I decided I wanted to challenge myself to interest the 6th graders.  I got a whole lot of ideas from my co-teachers, and one of them was doing pop songs with them instead of textbook songs.

Now I call the Beatles 'Classic Rock,' not Pop, but in Korea, anything that is popular is 'Pop.'  The Beatles are fairly popular here, and I love their music, so for my first song with them I chose Let It Be.  We spent about 5-7 minutes a class on it for 3 weeks, and handed out the lyrics in both English and Korean.  They got one practice run through before they performed for the camera, which is of course a competition!  (Make anything into a competition and the Korean children treat it like the Super Bowl.)

We had the 5th grade competition on Tuesday this week, and will have the 6th grade competition starting Friday, and because of testing on Thursday will do the final class next Thursday.  We video taped all four 5th grade classes, and Mr. Park and I decided that class 5-3 won.  I mixed them all together to make this video, using the best material I had (of course there is a lot of good material that I didn't use).  Also while practicing we always used a YouTube video with lyrics, and I would try to play along with the solo.  Because of this I felt it necessary to play it for the competition as well :)

Next I will be doing a Christmas song with each of my classes.  I will do Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer with the 3rd and 4th graders, and I'm not sure yet, but something "Pop" for the 5th and 6th.  Next year I will be looking for good ideas, so if anyone has suggestions/requests, email me them!

Little Hike

I was walking the the little path that Jack and I do everyday this past Saturday, and I took a video of this rock/waterfall.  Usually you can barely tell there is any water running down, but since it had rained recently it was really going. 

Also I point out that there is exercise equipment everywhere.  At just about any park you will see workout equipment which at first was quite interesting.  Also some times you'll pass gas station attendents or people waiting for the bus doing make-shift pushups or some kind of exercise.  If only that was popular in the US, haha.  As a matter of fact I was inspired, and when I was just going to do a quick hike I ended up getting a really good workout in at the park that Jack and I always go to, and jogged back :)

Dinner at UNIST

This past Saturday night I visited my Engineer friends at their Technical Institution UNIST.  I made friends with these guys a couple months ago, and see them every 1-3 weeks on Friday nights.  The group consists of 2 Indian fellows, 2 Pakistani fellows and 1 Vietnamese guy.  One of the Indian guys, Sai, is the one I talk to the most on instant messenger, and we have become quite good friends.

I haven't had real authentic Indian food yet, and there is a very popular Indian restaurant her in Ulsan called Namascar.  Sai had his 30th birthday last week and we talked about going there for dinner to celebrate.  He said that if I came out to UNIST (which is quite far for me on two buses) that they would cook me some food way better than the restaurant.  I thought that was a great idea, so I agreed. 

I mentioned that I was planning on going to my good friend Connie who has met these guys, and she wondered if she could come along.  I loved the idea because she's good company, and because then I would have a traveling companion out to UNIST!  Of course Sai didn't mind and we planned on going together after visiting our friend Julia in the hospital.  She has Pneumonia, but is getting better.

Here is Julia!  The next day (Sunday) we had a little pizza party with her, Connie, Howard and I. 

 Here is Connie on the bus!  If I had gone from my apartment the first bus would have been about 45 minutes, but from their neighborhood it was about an hour.  The second bus was about a half an hour to UNIST.  That girl next to her doesn't look too happy, but Connie does! lol

Here I am having more fun than usual on the city bus haha

Here is a really cool fountain on UNIST's campus.  We had to wait for our friends to come get us so Connie and I hung out around this for a bit.  Of course we had to run through it when the water wasn't spraying.  Connie ALMOST got soaked.

 

This is in the kitchen at UNIST.  The kitchen was pretty big and had 12 burners.  I only have one at my apartment, oh too bad they don't live closer.  Well anyways this is Dong from Vietnam, and he is a fantastic guitar player.  I've really switched over to acoustic over the last year, and his roommate had one so we had a nice jam session while waiting for the food to be ready!

On the left here is Rao from Pakistan, one of the funniest guys in the group.  In the middle is Sai from India, one of my best friends here, and then Connie.

Bon somtey (sp?) is cheers in French, which Connie just taught me.  We brought rice wine to share since they had never tried it before.  The rest is pretty self explanatory!

We ended up having a great dinner but it was not Indian food.  There were 2 main dishes, one which was Pakistani was chicken and some kind of sauce.  The other was a random mix of Mexican and Italian styles, which was interesting, but delicious!  They also made homemade pitas to scoop the food up with.  I still need to have some real Indian food soon, but it was really nice none the less.  We learned a bit about their cultures, and then went out and had a fun night together!

Orange Belt!

I did just earn my Orange belt in Taekwondo last Thursday, so I thought I would share the video of that.  I think the video of my Yellow belt was a better performance, but that got lost with my long lost phone.  The reason this performance is a little 'choppy' is because of the language barrier.  I knew the moves to do, but I didn't always know when to do them. 

There are four parts for this test.  The first is the basic action, which I know, but did not know I had to 'cry' or make the "aye" sound.  The second part is pumsei 2 which is the series of punches, kicks and blocks I memorized.  The third is the kicking test.  And the last is breaking the boards (there were two stacked). 

I did reach the third belt in under 2 months, so there is a chance that I will earn the Black belt before the year is up!  My friends and I met a girl that was just about to go back home (to California) and had just earned her Black belt when we went to Busan for Halloween a few weeks ago.  She actually stayed in Korea 2 months longer than planned so that she could take the Black belt test before she left.  She said it was very worth it; it's done in front of a huge crowd, and you get a big plaque certificate!

The boy with the glasses right in front of my fist was one of my break-dancers.  The one right behind my fist is a high schooler who just started coming a few weeks ago.  He and I and have so much fun just teasing each other and competing all the time.  I just love Taekwondo!

Gaji San!

I had one of the craziest Sundays ever a week ago.  I hiked the peak of the highest mountain in Ulsan, and the third highest in Korea with my friends from Hogye (same group that I did Pereaso Falls with, and nearly the same location!).  There is a little background information necessary, but in a nut shell: we got caught on the mountain in the dark, and got lost on the way down!  It was actually really scary, but I'll have to give the whole story to put it into perspective.

On Saturday my friends told me about this hike, that would take about 5-6 hours, but that it would be amazing and worth it.  I would have to leave my apartment at 7:30 am to meet them, then head out to where the mountain is.  I had already committed to attending an event that my friend was DJing.  He is one of my pretty good friends here, and it was supposed to be a huge event, so I didn't want to cancel.  What I decided is that I would go, but not stay too late, and then go on the hike the next day.  I got there and it was "Funk" themed, so the dancing was endless.  I was dancing for about 4 hours and didn't leave until 2am.  I was determined though, so I got up at 7am on 4 hours of sleep, and made it to meet my friends on time.

We all caught the bus and made it over to where Gaji San is ("san" is "mountain" in Korean).  We actually began our hike at 10:30 am, and it was beautiful.  There were some intense portions, and some fairly relaxing and scenic parts.  Where we started running into trouble though because some of us could hike fast enough to complete it in 5-6 hours, but a couple (out of 7 of us) could not keep that pace.  It was not a problem waiting at certain points, or in my case hiking a little slower to join them.

The hike was beautiful though, and we crossed paths with many friendly Korean hikers along the way.  We stopped at one mountain peak to eat with 3 Korean fellows, and then made it to the peak shortly after!

 Here is our little picnic with the 3 Korean gentlemen. 

As we were in the final stretch to the peak we passed this group.  The one guy was climbing that tree to pick fruit, which was right over the face of the mountain.. haha no thanks.

Picture taken as I reached the peak!

Julia and Connie.  Unfortunately after this long and crazy hike Julia (one of the fast hikers) caught pneumonia :(  She was already a little sick I guess, and then went on this hike.  I visited her this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  It looks like she is doing well, but still in the hospital. 

 

 Serious picture..

(Connie, Julia, Howard, Erin, Myself, Kathrine, and Norah)

CRAZY picture!

This is a bit of a silly video, and at the beginning they were joking how they were recording each other recording each other, so I recorded THAT.  haha then I walked over and said Tru HD(ehh), which is from a Korean Smart phone commercial.  (Koreans add the 'ehh' to many English words by the way.  Example: "The puppy is cute-ehhhh," or in volleyball: "nice-ehhh!")  Also "kimchi" is what people say instead of "cheese" for a picture haha.

Now we had a couple hours to get down, but it had taken us about 6 hours to get to the peak.. which was not good.  Also if we were to complete the 'loop' of the hike route, it would have been shorter on the way down, but the others worried about taking the wrong way down.  So when I was not worried about getting caught in the dark, it quickly became apparent that if we didn't hurry we would be in a little trouble.

As we were making our way down, the faster hikers were getting more and more worried about the time, and decided they were going to just go ahead.  I was with them (a bit ahead of the slower hikers) at a path intersection, and knew the right thing to do was to stay back with the others.  I did just that and did my best to lead them in the right direction as quickly as possible.  As dusk set in and we saw that we were not yet very close to ground level, a bit of panic started setting in.  Our faster friends had just reached the bottom, and we knew we had a ways to go.

Well we were on track and making it in the darkening night for a good while, but finally took a wrong turn.  At this point our friends at the bottom had found flashlights at the temple (at the base of the mountain) and borrowed them from the monks.  As they were coming to meet us we found a farm house with a light on and a barking dog.  We were not sure if we should go back into the pitch black woods of the mountain, or attempt to ask for help at this house.  Since our friends were determined to come find us we ventured back into the wilderness, and eventually found the trail (thank you glow in the dark post!).  Our friends actually overshot us by about 15 minutes, and we found that out be all yelling as loud as we could, followed by them (also thank you cell phones!!).

This is what hiking in the dark looks like..

When we knew where we were and that help was on the way, my three hiking companions and I took a seat on the trail and told stories until we were 'rescued.'  It was just rediculous.  We hiked for 9 hours; I had been dancing like crazy the night before and gotten 4 hours of sleep.  We all made it back (I slept on the bus) and had dinner in Hogye.

I was so wiped out, even with 8 hours of sleep, that I had almost no energy on Monday.  I canceled my doctor appointment and Taekwondo.  All in all it was still a fun experience, and definitely one I will never forget.  Also I still love all of the people in that group, but some of them are more suited for 'advanced' hikes.  You live and you learn!

Updates

There has been so much happening, so I have several great posts coming.  I will go ahead and give a real broad update now, and there will be more specific posts with more pictures and videos soon.

•  I have now been in Korea for over 3 months, and I am still loving it!
• I have been keeping very active.  
• I am still doing Taekwondo 3 days a week, and actually just earned my orange belt!  I have been doing Taekwondo for just under 2 months and I'm on the third belt, so I guess I'm doing well!
• I still do daily hikes with my co-teacher, which has been awesome with the Fall weather.  Of course I'm not excited about Winter (because of the cold) but the temperature has been very mild for November, so I think I'm doing better than what I'm used to in Ohio!
• I have been doing volleyball a lot more often, almost every day actually.  Our team has some really good players, but we got beat pretty bad the last time we played another school, so there are practices almost everyday.  I am getting pretty good, but I don't always get to play when we face other schools.  I think part of it is I am the least experienced player there and I still make beginner mistakes occasionally.  It is just for fun and we're almost always playing against teachers in our own school, so I get to play all the time anyways.  It sure does remind me of 10th grade football, not quite making the varsity cut though, haha.
• I am still break-dancing on my own, but I have sad news about my class.  It was canceled after a long ordeal last week.   First there was a big deal with the athletic director who apparently never knew about it.  I was willing to fight for the class because I thought it was so beneficial for the students, and the athletic director was just upset that he wasn't asked upfront about the unofficial club.  (My co-teacher and I checked with the vice principal, and the head teacher, and it was 'cleared.')  After everything cooled down last week I was told we needed permission from like 6 different faculty members, as well as submit official documents to make it a real club.  When everything was about finished, the principal essentially vetoed the whole thing for reasons nobody in my generation will ever fully understand.  Even Jack (my co-teacher) thought it was ridiculous.  But people in my principal's generation have some traditional, conservative views, that will not allow 6th grade girls, boys and a male teacher to be in a dance club together.  I also blame his lack of knowledge of break-dancing to this decision, as his idea of dance differs from the style which I have been instructing.  It's too bad, but you can't win em' all, and that is not a battle worth fighting (with the principal).
• I have also been doing other hikes on my own and with my friends.  All in all, I am in great shape from all of these activities! 
• Another unfortunate thing is I am ready to give up on the Oriental Medicine; acupuncture treatment.  I was going once a week for chiropractic, since I have slight scoliosis.  My chiropractor back home was very helpful, but my back has been getting much worse lately.  Part of it is all of the intense exercise I do (Taekwondo/vollyball/breakdancing).  However I have always done extreme type sports, and the Western style chiropractor balanced my back out.  So I will be searching for a new doctor soon.
• I've managed to keep a fairly active social life as well around all of my other activities.  One of my favorite things about being in Korea is actually all of the other foreigners I have met and hung out with.  This past weekend for example I was hanging out with my new friends from India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Japan, Ireland, England, Canada, South Africa, Germany, Russia and of course Korea.  How cool is that!?  It is absolutely amazing, and it really makes me want to spend more time abroad.  I have the opportunity to go all over, but I am leaning towards China or Vietnam next year.  I will definitely have an extensive post weighing my options!

My Breakdancing Class

One of my favorite extra curricular here in Korea is my break dancing club which is slowly but surely growing in numbers.  I started off with two 6th grade girls, then two 6th grade boys (one of which I do Taekwondo with) joined in, and finally this past Friday two new girls came out!  It is good that they are all 6th graders since they are more physically able than the younger elementary students, and they all know each other well. 

They are a little camera shy, but they are awesome!  I had them sign up recently because I am bad with Korean names, so I had them put their Korean and English names down.  The two performing for the camera are my original two dancers, and they did "Top Rock," "The Drop," "Six Step," a "Helicopter," and then the "Up."  (The Up isn't really a move, but I taught them how to stand up out of breakin' with some style :) 

Again they are very shy, but I liked this video too so I figured I put it up!

Beautiful Korean Fall!

Korea has a beautiful Fall season with all of the color change in the plants and trees.  I have mentioned before that I take daily hikes with my co-teacher Mr. Park, so I took a video the other day of the scenery.  It takes about 20-25 minutes to get to this little exercise park from our school, which is actually right behind my apartment.  We cross about 5 little bridges on the way there, sit and chat for about 10 minutes, then head back.  It is a great break from teaching 4 classes in the morning, and then sitting at my desk for 3-4 hours.  There are days where we play volleyball or badminton around 2 or 3 pm, and many days I practice guitar during my office hours, but it is so nice to get the fresh air and exercise right after lunch!