remote from the mundane world

songnisan, or "remote from the mundane world," was a fabulous weekend retreat. It's a village. it's tiny. There's a big golden Buddha (big = 5 stories tall) and a monk village. There's mountains and acres upon acres of green. Seriously. Greener than Washington. That's saying something.

Hiking included a steep mountain side (apparently a theme in Korea. I better have killer legs by the end of this), some pool jumping/wading, and taekwondo at the top of the mountain (well, sort of the top).

We lucked out on the hotel - we got beds (although back-ache inducing), tv, and a/c. The people on the floor before us were subject to a more traditional experience with non-functioning tvs, nonexistent a/c, and, well, nonexistent beds. The beds were folded up neatly in their closets which they unrolled when they were ready to sleep. :)

Interesting run-ins. Aside from everyone in the small village/town part staring at the white foreigners in groups that were probably the size of 1/4 of the town at a time, i bought some mushrooms (famous here) for my language teachers. I recruited the help of two advanced ETA speakers. It started off well when one friend convinced the ajima (older korean lady) to break up one of her 10,000w bag into two smaller 5k w bags. Unfortunately, the ajima started getting testy, telling my two korean speaking friends to stop speaking in English... and then directing them to become boyfriend and girlfriend... Which was made even more awkward by the fact that one of my korean speaking friends was standing next to her boyfriend (who doesn't speak korean). The ajima spouted nationalism telling them to replant the korean seed, to move back from america, and stay in korea. And THEN, when she found out that the mushrooms were meant to be gifts to a teacher, she started bashing on americans for being cheap and saying that this was an insufficient gift. I was thankful I didn't really understand and profusely thanked and apologized to my friends who got me the 2 bag deal in the first place.

But really, it wasn't all bad. That just stood out.

As did the FABULOUS food. Mrs. Shim (program coordinator) went all out for us. I realized that I still do like korean food, even after the cafeteria. :) We had delicious banchan upon banchan upon banchan (side dishes). Awesome mountain vegetable bibimbap. Best octopus I've had in a panchan (pancake). Homemade magkali (milky rice wine - tasted a bit like sap at the end....). Looots of i-soo cream-oo (ice cream - my new favorites are walnut speckled popsicle and honeydew melon popsicle).

Pictures soon. Camp Fulbright commences in about 11 hours. One lesson plan down and two to go. 1) Haikus and syllables 2) something on valentine's day? 3) birthdays and horroscopes. Ladies and gentlemen, we have hit the ground running. So much for the mundane world.