Teacher Trip!

This past Thursday I joined the rest of the teaching staff in an overnight hotel meeting/ end of the year celebration.  It was really fun and a great bonding experience with the other teachers.  Being a foreigner in the school makes it hard to get further than 'hello' and 'nice to see you' with the other teachers.  With the exception of my co-teachers, and when we play volleyball, I just go about my business.  That is fine, but whenever we go out to dinner and the other teachers get a couple drinks in them, they open up incredibly!  They have plenty of English vocab to communicate, but I think we are all just timid at other times, like at lunch time in the cafeteria.

We left the school at 3 pm and traveled about 20 minutes to another part of Ulsan.  We brought all of our things up to the rooms of the hotel, then went down for a soccer version of volleyball.  I'd seen videos of this, but had never played before.  It was really fun and I was actually pretty good!

 

For this game, the women were allowed to use their hands like in volleyball, but the guys had to use our heads, feet and knees like in soccer.  Each team could get up to three hits per turn, and you can play it on a bounce.  The last kick landed out of bounds.

 

Next we had a meeting about the school year and the coming school year.  For about an hour I read news articles on my phone, since I understood no part of the meeting.  My co-teacher Jack did point out which days we will have off for holiday next year though near the end of the meeting, so at least I gained some knowledge during this meeting :)

Next we had dinner, which consisted of raw fish, lots of mekju (beer) and soju (watered down vodka).  It was really fun, and one of the best times to bond with the other teachers, because like I said before, they really make the effort to talk to me after a drink or two, haha.  Had a lot of fun, and enjoyed the food.

The raw fish, and several side dishes.

My co-teacher Mr. Cheung and another teacher at the school.

After dinner five other teachers and I went to a norebang (personal karaoke room) nearby.  These are actually all teachers that I play volleyball with, so it was really fun!

After the norebang we went back to the hotel, had some snacks, and played some cards.  It was a wonderful time all around :D

And here is breakfast: scrambled egg soup, kimchi, anchovies, and a couple other random side dishes.