Teacher Trip to Go Je Island!!

This past weekend I joined all of the teachers and administrators on their annual teacher's trip.  Last year we went to a fairly nice hotel up north, but this trip was WAY more fun!  To do this trip any justice, I have to include TONS of pictures and videos :)  We went to Korea's second largest island, Go Je.  It is just South of Busan, and is connected by a tunnel that goes under the sea, and a new state of the art bridge.

We left the school on Friday at 3 PM, and arrived at our hotel around 6 PM, so it was not a very long trip to make, AND it was probably the most fun bus ride I've ever been on!  Two of my favorite teachers at the school (who I know from volleyball) were the MCs/entertainers, Wook-Ho and Woo-Sok.  As soon as we departed, all of the teachers were given some delicious snacks, and EVERYONE was encouraged to have either a shot of whiskey or champagne.  As I have mentioned before, Korea has a drinking culture, and co-workers are encouraged to bond via alcohol.  We (with the exception of a couple teachers) didn't drink too much on the bus ride, but the fact that we were still "on the clock" until 5 PM made it pretty funny to me.  

                                        Here is Wook-Ho (in the orange) giving me my round.

Here is Woo-Sok with the champagne (or wine?  Not sure.)

We received maps and information about the trip we were embarking on (Mr. Park was nice enough to translate the important stuff for me).  Then we were all given a number that we had to use for all games played on the trip.  Female teachers had to answer questions by first saying "yeo-ja 3 ho" for example, and the male teachers had to say "Nam-ja 6 ho," which meant girl number 3 and boy number 6 respectively.  We then played a number of games which were hilarious in which the participants were picked at random from a hat.  Unfortunately my number was not picked, but it was still very entertaining!

Some teachers playing one of the games.

In this game the teachers had to pop the balloon via hugging.

For this game the MC's showed us a very zoomed in picture of a teacher, and then we had to guess who it was.  What's so cool is I understood most everything that they say in this video!  (That is partially why this was so much fun!)

We stopped at a rest stop just before crossing the bridge to the island, then we drove about 40 minutes to our hotel.  It was funny because one of the teachers told me: "this hotel.. nicer than your house."  haha  It was very nice by Korean standards, however for a Westerner that is debatable since we all slept on the floor, lol. 

Gorgeous view from the rest stop.

When we arrived we dropped our stuff off at our rooms, then went straight to dinner.  When I walked into our party's room, one of the workers started talking to the teachers next to me as if something was wrong.  I figured out what she was saying on my own and thought it was funny.  She was warning them that most foreigners can't eat the kind of food we were having: Raw fish and soju.  NOT A PROBLEM.  haha, I have adapted quite well to Korea's cuisine, and can actually appreciate things like raw fish (it's quite expensive!)  We had a very good and fun dinner, then we moved on to the norebang portion of the evening.  Unfortunately nobody got pictures of dinner or the norebang (some of the pictures in this post are from other teachers that shared them), but good times were had.  I sang Hotel California, Obla Di Obla Da and I'm Yours  :)

The next morning we had breakfast at 7:30, and then toured around Go Je Island.  We visited a famous pebble beach, a very cool looking windmill, and a few other beautiful viewpoints.  

Group photo on the pebble beach!

Here I am in front of the old school windmill.

Many of us did 'jump shots' in this spot (right in front of the windmill).  Here is Mr. Park's shot!

Here is mine, haha.

These guys are hilarious.  They tried like 5 times to get this shot.  I was behind them taking videos of it, but I'll just include the successful one ;)

Next we went to "Long Snake Island" which is a pretty small island off the coast of Go Je island.  We spent 2 hours there, and it had tons of cool stuff to check out, so I'll include the most interesting pictures from that island.  

Here is the ferry we took to Long Snake Island.

I was sitting right next to the captain for the whole 10 minute ride before I realized it (my back was to the front).

Here you can see how small this island is.

Here are some teachers under this cool looking bridge.

The classic "Peeing Child" fountain.

This was an outdoor concert venue with some very cool looking head statues along the top.

This is Min, a really nice teacher that plays volleyball with me.  Each of these statues has an interesting theme.

This statue's theme is religion.

Here I am at lunch with Wook-Ho!

We had some very delicious seafood.  You can see a shrimp, a bit of octopus and a clam in my bowl here.

The last thing we did was hike this mountain.  Only 8 of us teachers did it, and it took about 1 hour to get to the top.  Here I am at the peak with Mr. Park and a beautiful view!  After this we took the bus back to Ulsan.  I'm so glad I went on this trip!  I almost didn't go because there were other events this weekend.  I figured this would be the most unique trip, and I was right!  (Not to mention it was all free!)