What I have done on my winter vacation (so far)

For the better part of the next two months, I'm out of school. I will be working on my Korean language skills, going to Thailand at some point (details are still being finalized, but I HAVE started to contact the travel agents - good step) going rock climbing next weekend, and probably a few other short trips around Korea.

Before that happens, I was hired to teach a winter camp. Basically, a few cities have
started to hold English camps (to supplement what individual schools have been doing for a while, I guess) and so Gwangyang decided to hold their first-ever middle school camp.

I had been told this would be a day camp a few miles from my house. The Friday before it started, I was told it was actually an overnight camp rather far away. Since I had committed to taking care of a friend's pets during that time, it HAD to be a day camp for me. So, I got on a bus here early in the morning, and about 12 hours later got on another to come back. All in all, long but not horribly strenuous days (with one exception). While I was lucky in that I didn't have to do very much planning at all, it was difficult because I'm a control freak about things like this, have the attention span of a goldfish, and hate to see kids when they know that their time is being wasted.

There was a lot of "look at the friendly foreigner!" and older men trying to force children to have conversations with me (which always goes SO well!). But what I found really nice was when I could talk to kids without any of the other grown-ups around. They were willing to try and make mistakes and ask each other for help and it was awesome. I would just go and hang out in the girls' dorm room, and they would teach me games and ask questions and talk about boys - it was great.


(okay, no one looks happy, but I swear they were giggling right up until the picture snapped)

The most talked about activity of the week was the forced march hike up Beagoun Mountain. It was rocky. And steep. And the mud was frozen. And at the top, the wind was so strong I couldn't keep my eyes open. And it was freaking COLD up there!

Find one.single.person in this picture who looks like they want to be there.

Anyway, pain builds character. Or something like that.

A moment for a big shout-out for polar fleece - that stuff will hold on to every little bit of heat you generate!! The unfortunate side effect is that when one is very active and wearing polar fleece, one still sweats. Polar fleece doesn't allow for the evaporation, and can lead to the sweat running down your back and into the back of your jeans so that after doing a 4 mile (very, very steep) hike in about 1.5 hours, you maybe look a little like you sat in a puddle of water. Eep.


Songgwangsa

On Sunday, I went to Suncheon to meet Virginia to go see Songgwangsa, a temple sort of near Suncheon. This is in keeping with the "say yes as much as possible" thing, and again was a wonderful thing to do.

My camera has issues with turning itself on in my bag and sucking the batteries dry, so I don't have the pictures to show how beautiful this place is. I will try to add more later.

It has snowed the day before - enough so that most of the roads were clear, but everything else had a little frosting of glitter, so if the ride out there was somewhat long, it was lovely.


The main temple.


In one of the side temples, there are a thousand buddhas, each with a different face.


One of the things I think about when looking at the elaborate painting on the Buddhist temples in Korea is the level of time and detail that goes into creating something that will soon fade and have to be re-done. The colors are so vivid and the patterns so intricate, however they are transient. I have a hard time meditating - I just can't sit still, and when I try to do the whole "let the thoughts pass out of your mind" thing, I start to think about thinking about letting the thoughts pass through, and how you can not think about what you are thinking about, and then end up thinking about thinking. Anyway, I like to think about the painting of the temples as a meditation inandof itself - the focus and attention to each brush stroke, yet creating a whole work of art that can only last for so long.

On the way home, the bus driver decided to pass a semi. We were on a two-lane road. On a mountain. The fact that I am writing this lets you know that he made it, but it really wasn't pretty to watch. I think it was right after that I decided it was either try to sleep or get car sick. I, not surprisingly to anyone who has ever been in a car with me for any length of time, went with the former. It is a testament to my ability to fall asleep in almost any moving vehicle that I can sleep on buses in Korea. A gift, some might say.