Last Night in Gwangju

Final night in Gwangju and heading down to Gurye in the afternoon. Might be the last post for a while as I settle in and get things going. Spent the last couple of nights around the downtown core, given a tour around the city by a friend of ours. The bus terminal in this city is wild, it is like a massive airport and has arcades, theatres, restaurants, concerts. This is  a bus terminal. I thought it was pretty phenomenal that they made it into a massive hub. The tour helped out although I won't be back in the city for a while. We found our way into an electronic-ish store that is basically like a giant bargain shop, they even had grand pianos which was awesome so I busted out some Taylor Swift, naturally. Rest of the night was mellow, hotel and bed. Exhausted from the last couple of nights, plus orientation was starting to get to me. I can't believe how much these Koreans feed us, I have definitely gained weight this week alone, it's terrible. I'm not alone either, there's so much food being thrown around it's ridiculous. So for the fam, if you're worried about me not eating, boom, I'm eating more than ever apparently.

That was Friday. We had our final orientation presentations on Sat, and prepared a couple lesson plans. Seems pretty fun and relatively easy, so that makes me excited for the classroom. The first week will basically be me just introducing myself and getting to know the kids, so I'm pretty excited to see all of the classrooms. Little worried about possibly being in an all boys school some days, those kids are schmucks. They also apparently like to hit. Might get a wiffle bat and let them go nuts during an activity or something. Maybe play some whack a mole. I'll also be teaching adults which I'm actually excited for as well, it's basically a conversational lesson that gets me talking with all the other teachers.

Started learning/practicing customs around here too. Never realised this before, but Koreans will only pass something with their right hand or both hands to be at the utmost respectful. The left hand needs to actually be somewhere on the right arm. Halfway up is usually where people hold it, but if you don't put your left hand on your right arm, you may as well be insulting someone's entire lineage and country. Kind of interesting. Trying to get into the swing of things with that one. I still pass things with my left hand though, which is bad. That is basically as bad as not putting the left hand on the right. Started noticing all these little things with people in the streets and at vendors and stores now. Plus need to brush up on my bows. Been bowing to people when I see them to get used to it.

Saturday night is basically our last night in Gwangju as Sunday (today) will be exploring the province, packing and getting everything ready for the move. The coordinators threw together a little going away party. After a little celebrating it was time to hit the town. So much different on a Saturday night than during the week, the streets are absolutely mad packed. So many people. We started the night off in Soul Train, think I mentioned that place in the last post. Western bar for foreigners but it's super chill to be there. Then it was time to hit the clubs. Bubble Bar was packed so off to Mixx, small place but it was alright, crammed up really easily. After some more bar hopping a group of us thought it would be a great idea for some noraebang. Naturally. The bars and clubs are "open until 4am" but that basically means nothing. They stay open. Noraebang is open way later. It was 4am when we hit up noraebang and there were still tonnnsss of people out in the street. Koreans love their night life. Sang up a storm, brought in some Taylor Swift again, naturally. Started watching the sun start to rise a bit through the noraebang window. By the time we got back to the hotel it was about 530 which was a little iffy because we were heading out to tour the province for 850. We were wide awake at 630 and the sun was up and super foggy outside but our hotel is on a hiking system, and since we were all wide awake, found it a brilliant idea to go hiking before breakfast. It was nice, actually really nice, but by the time 850 rolled around and we were going to get on the bus, starting to crash. Finally got some sleep on the 45 min bus ride to the Boseung Green Tea Fields. I've got pics but I'll have to post them later. Super nice over there, and the fields are just rolling hills of green tea plants. Climbed to the top of that one for the second hike of the morning. It goes really high up, but the view was spectacular. The mountains just disappeared into the fog but you could see the rolling green tea bushes on either side and it was phenomenal. It was really cloudy and foggy so the pictures don't do it justice, but still unbelievable to see.

From there we had lunch just outside of Boseung, it was mostly mountain vegetables. Oh, probably should throw this in here but don't want anyone to worry, had my first brush with a chestnut at dinner on Saturday night. It was stuffed into the chicken they served us in soup.That sketched me out and I was pretty worried that something was going to happen and I could feel my throat getting scratchy and soar but luckily it passed in about fifteen minutes. Anyways, need to be more careful over here. Especially when I get out into the country. So we had lunch and checked out the Suncheon Ecological Park which is basically a wetland with tons of reed beds and another mountain to climb so we made that trek up there. Third one of the day. Phenomenal views of the marshland landscape and the mountains in the background. Pics of this as well later. Back down and on the way to the hotel. Stopped for dinner tried Bamboo Wine which I actually enjoyed. It's pretty sweet but I thought it was pretty light as well. They bottle it in bamboo shoots which was pretty cool.

Missing everyone, probably won't be on for a while yet as I settle into Gurye. A guy in my orientation group knows the teacher I'm replacing who still hasn't gotten back to me, but at least he's said nothing but good things, gives me something else to look forward too. Should be a good move! Hopefully my co-teacher isn't a horror as I've heard some can be. Oh well, I'll deal either way. Hopefully my school has a volleyball team too. Apparently Wednesdays are only half days in every Korean school, at least in this province, so teachers usually take the time to jump onto a volleyball court. Should be fun if they've got that, hear it's a great way to get on my principal's good side since the principal is basically the most powerful person in the education system.