IETC

This weekend was one of the craziest and most fun weekends I have had in a long time. Saturday morning we took a train and then a bus to meet the KEY club at their retreat (IETC or Intensive English Training Camp). They had gone Friday morning and had their own little thing all day Friday. I wasn't sure what to expect, because every KEY club member I had talked to didn't seem to know what was going on. The place ended up not being as secluded as I had thought, but everything worked out well. We had a little convenience shop nextdoor that came in really handy, and there were public restrooms and showers for us to use. The room that we stayed in was just a large room with a wooden floor and some sinks and stoves. We all ended up sleeping on the floor with just blankets and pillows.

Saturday ended up being probably the second longest day of my life (the first being the first day I arrived here in Korea). They KEY club had every hour of our day planned out. We started out by dividing up into teams and playing a name game so we got to know everyone on our team. We then played a bunch of games where we had to race to do different things. One of the games we played involved everyone on the team taking a turn reading a toungue twister as fast as they could. Some tongue twisters were in English and some were in Korean. Luckily, I didn't have to play this game. After the morning competitions, we all cooked lunch in our teams. We had some delicious food (can't remember the Korean name for it) that was a combo of ham, vegetables, potatoes, rice and egg.


We then went down to the river to play in the water. Sidenote: Koreans do not like the sun and are also very conservative so their idea of swim wear is this:

At first, me and my American friends were the only people to go into the water while everyone else just stood around the water's edge and stared at us. It was pretty awkward...I think that they may have been intimidated when the American guys took their shirts off to go swimming, but I'm not sure. Eventually everyone came in though and we played some water games. The river area itself was pretty cool because all along the banks were these tent type things that Koreans hang out in all day and cook, drink, etc. and then sleep in at night.


After swimming we played some more games that included passing an onion ring from one person to the next using only a small straw that you have in your mouth, and passing a small piece of a transparency sheet from one person to the next using only your mouth. Here is a video of the first team who went for the second game I mentioned:

We then made dinner in our teams (we had delicious curry and pork this time)and hung out for a while. By this time, I was ready for bed already.

Next was the highlight of the entire night, which was the Miss KEY pageant. For the pageant, one male ETA and one male KEY club member had to dress up in drag and compete for the Miss Key title. It also involved them doing some sort of dance to an American pop song in their drag. It was abosolutely hysterical to watch, and the guys did a really good job with it. Seth ended up winning Miss KEY ETA, and Steven from KEY club won Miss KEY KEY Club.


They then had us walk down to the river bank and stand around a bonfire while they taught us a traditional Korean dance. It was cool that they wanted to share their culture with us, but the practicing took a little too long and it was getting late. Before we went to go and begin the drinking festivities, we had a candlelit ceremony type thing where each person stood, said one thing on their mind to the group (mostly thank yous) and then threw their candle into the bonfire.

After the ceremony we went back to the room to eat some more and share Korean and American drinking games with each other. The biggest hit was when we taught our team how to play Flip Cup. I'm pretty sure we just introduced a new drinking fad in Korea. The rest of the night consisted of more drinking and lots of dancing. At some point during the night, some of the ETA's and Koreans drew on 3/4 of the people who were sleepings' faces with black marker. My favorite was this kid who not only had eyes drawn on his eyelids and writing all over him, but he was surrounded with empty Soju bottles so that when he woke up, he would knock them all over. Overall, I just had a great time getting to know all of the KEY club guys and girls. They are the nicest and most caring people I have ever met. They are always thinking about other people before themselves, and would do anything for you. I'm really hoping I can maybe keep in contact with some of them during my year here. It's also made me very excited to make more Korean friends near my homestay. I have many, many more pictures and videos (including all of the guys' performances from the pageant) so if you're interested in seeing any, let me know.