One week left!

We finished our Korean language classes on Friday! It feels really good to be done. Our final exam is tomorrow and it is four hours long and it involves writing, reading, interviewing and role play with a partner. I don't even know how to begin studying for it. I've never really had to studying for anything before besides looking over the material the hour before the test, so this is kind of new for me. I actually went to the library the other night to study...I don't think I ever did that once during college. I had pictures with my 2 language teachers but I lost my memory card for my one camera, so I'll have to get new ones and post them later. Unfortunately my favorite teacher, Teacher K (we call our teachers J and K because their names are only like 2 letters apart), had to go back to Seoul due to some personal emergency. I'm sad I couldn't say goodbye to her or give her my gifts.

Friday night I went out with two other ETA's and two KEY club members for a popular Korean dish called samgyeopksal. Each new food I try here keeps getting better and better. Like a lot of the meat dishes, we had to cook it ourselves. Samgyeopsal is very fatty pork cut into thick strips that look like bacon. You eat it with some spicy sauces and garlic and onions all wrapped up in a lettuce leaf.


Steven preparing our samgyeopsal.

Last night I went out to find food in Chuncheon with one of my friends. We ended up at a street vendor stand where we had see a sign for toast (토스트). We ordered an egg and toast sandwich and were presented with a toasted egg and KETCHUP sandwich folded and put inside a cup. We then ate the sandwich out of the cup on plastic stools on the side of the road in front of an establishment that could have been a nightclub or a strip club...still not sure. Gotta love the random adventures of living in a foreign country.

Yesterday we went to the DMZ. We drove 2 hours on a bus to stay at the DMZ for a whole 15 minutes, and the DMZ point we went to wasn't the popular one where you can walk to the hut in the middle of the DMZ and see where they have their talks. I guess it was a cool experience just to say that I have been there and that I "saw" North Korea, especially since I don't know what is going to happen between the North and South during my lifetime. I'm definitely going to go the popular DMZ point though while I'm here. After we left the DMZ we went to get bibimbap and see the Peace Dam and Peace Bell. The Peace Dam was built by S. Korea to stop any accidental or intentional flooding from North Korea. Next to the dam is the Peace Bell which is made of empty cartridge casings from battlefields all over the world. They only ring the bell on special occasions, and the S. Korean government allowed us the privilege to ring it while we were there. For more info check out this website: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/art/2009/08/153_45468.html


The Peace Bell


pretending to ring the bell


The Peace Dam


Shaking the bronze hand of one of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates who unfortunately looks like a serial killer.


Fulbright Korea Class of 2009

I only have one week left here and I have bitter-sweet feelings about everything. I have been having such an awesome time and I've made some really great friends here. I already feel at home in Chuncheon and its going to be hard to start over in a new city. I also really enjoy the dorm life and hanging out at all hours of the day. But I'm also very anxious to meet my host family and to start teaching (because this will be the first time in my life that I will actually have my very own classroom...I feel like the last 5 years of my life have been leading up to this point) and to see how I do living on my own in Korea. Luckily, I won't be completely alone because like I said in a previous post, my 2 best girl friends and some other friends are in the city with me. We're already making plans to take yoga classes and to volunteer at an orphanage together. We also already have 2 gatherings planned with my other close friends who are farther away in Korea. I'm trying to have everyone come to Cheongju or meet in Seoul for my birthday weekend, and at the end of September Busan (which is a city located on the Southern coast of Korea) has a huge film festival that we are all going to go to.

Coming up this week: final exam, ETA talent show, Korean language class graduation & talent show, leaving for Seoul on Friday, US Ambassador's pool party on Friday, having Saturday and Sunday free to explore Seoul, and then Monday meeting our principals and teachers and then its off to our separate schools and home stays! Wish me luck!