Silvergrass fields on Mujangbong Peak

Fall is definitely hitting Gyeongju these days. Mornings and nights are brisk as can be, but days are sunny and sprinkled with autumnal colours. This weekend I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous weather by heading hiking. It's been a while since I have! A friend had told me about this trail famous for having fields of Silvergrass. After a little research, I found this website with lots of useful info. Turns out the silvergrass can be found on Mount Dongdaebong where we hiked to the Mujangbong Peak. The 18 bus took us from Gyeongju directly to Amguk village where the trail began. It seems forest on top of the mountain was cleared to become a farm of some sort, but when the project fell through this silvergrass took over.

I hiked up with two friends, Dan and Ian. We hiked at a leisurely pace taking photos and enjoying the colourful trees. I actually forgot about the grass while hiking since it was so pretty to be outside. It was a lovely surprise though, as it is quite an unusual mountain topping. The grass really was silvery as it caught the sunlight and glinted beautifully. Sadly, I don't know how well it photographed. It was really beautiful and peaceful.

Hiking in Korea is always amusing because Koreans get decked out in hiking gear. Most people look like they're either going on a week long deepwoods backpacking trip or a advertisement photo shoot instead of a three hour hike. They have huge backpacks, hiking pants, jackets, hats, gloves, and shoes. Also everything is coloured from bright to neon. We never had to worry that we had gotten on the wrong bus as all we had to do was follow our neon friends.

After reaching the peak, we headed down the other side of the trail. It was super steep. Everyone we passed who was going up was panting heavily and looking fairly miserable. There were even ropes for us to cling to as we climbed/jumped our way down. We were very very happy to have ascended on the gentler trail! I would have taken a photo but I was a little preoccupied with survival.

No soil under me? No problem, I shall
be a floating tree.

Temple remains. Pagoda. Best part:
we saw a chipmunk climb in and out
of the pagoda!

Walking sticks are very popular.

Taking photos alone is always awkward,
so somehow my joke pose turned out the best.

If you don't have a smartphone you can't
survive an emergency I guess.

Peeking at the peak! 

View from the peak.

Pretty colours

Back in Gyeongju, I passed these glorious
hiking backpacks. If you haven't already
figured it out: Cute is BIG in Korea.

Science Fair Friday

This Friday I didn't teach, and instead went to a science fair. It wasn't quite the same as back home with the experiments and posters. Instead it was more like a fair, with popcorn and cotton candy, and with a sciency theme. Various tents were set up with different experiments, many of which were interactive. These included pottery, planting little plants in soil, growing some kind of waxy crystal in liquid (bear with me nothing was English), looking in microscopes (yay recognized plant cells!), and other fun stuff.

Cutest/most exciting parts:

1. A little girl who is not one of my students came up to me and said
"Excuse me, I think I remember your name... Is it.. Anne?"

Turns out she was at the district summer camp! How cutes.

2. Some graduates, all decked out in their new middle school uniforms, were presenting a booth. I went over to say hi and they totally remembered me! It was lovely. They even managed to explain a bit of what they were showing. They have three sloped slide things with balls that would roll down. One slide was straight, another with a slight curve, and the third with a deeper curve. Anyways he was able to explain the straight one was the shortest, and the slopped one made the ball go the fastest. Yay! They looked so grown up! It really must be horribly bittersweet for parents to see their cuties become humans.

3. So many kids gave me popcorn. I love them.

4. My coteacher's husband is a high school teacher and had a booth showing how to make hand drip coffee. So I got coffee. Oooh yeahh.

Super cool tent showing silk worms! Here are the cocoons
being spun!

Apparently one of my students raised them!
Also the worms dyed purple will make
purple silk??

Also I went on a bike ride and took some pictures. 

Halloween prepping..

You may remember my awesome Halloween box from last here. Well.. here it is again! 

 Check it out:

Peeled tomato - human heart
Oiled and sewed together tortilla - Frankenstein's skin
Morning tofu - Zombie brains
Oily noodles - Vampire veins
Peeled grapes - Witches' eyes
Seaweed - Swamp monster intestines

Next week I will be going on an EPIK teacher cultural trip on Thursday and Friday, meaning I won't be teaching those days, meaning Halloween week begins TOMORROW with grade 4! I am very excited and will try to capture more than I did last year. Bring on the screams!!

Zombie run and a letter

It's definitely getting harder and harder to write blog posts. I no longer feel like anything warrants a post - it's all just regular every day life other than travels! Teaching is nice, my kids are awesome, occasionally not, and life continues!

It's fall now so things are starting to get chilly. I did manage to get this picture of a Gingko tree turned bright yellow. I recently found out in Korean they're called "Bank trees" and I wonder if it's because of the golden hue they take in the fall. I was happy when my coworker though "gingko" was a cute word because it really is.

This weekend I did do something slightly out of the ordinary - I participated in a 5k chairty "Zombie Run." It was a lot of fun! You could sign up as a human or a zombie. Zombies had absolutely fantastic and terrifying makeup. Some even crawled on the ground like legless zombies always seem to do in movies. Us humans were given a belt with three ribbons velcroed on. If we managed to keep a ribbon, we were survivors. Unfortunately, a large portion of people cheated by hiding, tying, or placing ribbons in their crotches to dissuade the zombies from grabbing. I didn't survive, ,but I like to think I died with honour. The coolest part was climbing up a path in a forested section with graveyards on either side of us, listening for the groaning of upcoming zombies! Definitely got me into the Halloween spirit. Pictures and more info can be found on the facebook page.

Here is a letter I got today. It's just written on plain paper so I will just type it out instead of taking a photo because I'm lazy. It's from a grade 6 boy who's written a few times and is, obviously, awesome.

"Dear Anne Teacher,

Hello? [the question mark after hello will never cease to amuse me] I'm Su Hyeok in 6 -7. You are very special for me because I didn't write any letter to English teacher before and you are very kind to us so everyone like you. Also you asked me where I want to travel I want to travel all place in the world hahaha! I don't care, but I worry about danger. Safe is most important. I want to know what is your favorite Korean food? I will wait for your letter,

From Su hyeok"

I may have added periods and comma's, but the rest is totally unchanged! Cue ego boost!

Pretty yellow gingko

And a hippo statue!

To: Aunn ?

The Korean letters spell out "sorry." Adorable but apparently I am not really doing that great of a job now am I! Love my sense of style.

English Tshirts

I regret with all my heart I was unable to obtain a picture of the following scene.

I saw a young Korean mother walking out with her family. She had a husband, a toddler and it's stroller, and she appeared to be pregnant with another on the way. Obviously, when one is prego one wants to be comfy, so she was wearing leggings and a big baggy shirt with some decorative English words on it.

The English words were enormous and covered the entire shirt.

The shirt said (without any censorship)

"B**CH 

Give me

your money!!!"

Gizmo 1995-2013

A blog of my life would be incomplete if I didn't include the bad along with the good. One of my only fears leaving for Korea was that my sweet baby kitty wouldn't be there when I came home. Sadly, this fear was realized. Luckily, she had the loving presence of my mom with her.

Gizmo you are forever the greatest cat ever to grace this Earth. I'm so sorry I wasn't there with you in the end. See you on the other side.

Giz even came to my going away dinner.
I love her so much.

The last night before I came to Korea, I went to my friend's house after dinner for a little goodbye. When I came home, maybe around midnight, I couldn't find my cuddle buddy. I worried she had fallen asleep somewhere in the house and we wouldn't be able to say goodbye. I brushed my teeth sadly,  but to my elation when I walked back to my room there she was. She was sitting at my door waiting for me looking up expectantly. She ran to join me when I got into bed. I don't think she knew I was leaving, but I hope she knew how much I loved her.

Parental visit!!!!

I am extraordinarily lucky in many ways, and they all stem from having won the random lottery of life and coming into the world with magnificent parents. This was proven, once again, when said awesome parental units flew around the world to spend ten days checking out my newest home!

My parents arrived in Seoul on Thursday night. I was teaching Friday, but the new principal and vice principal at my school generously allowed me to leave after teaching, which is noon. They really didn't have to and they don't even know me, so it was extremely generous.

I met up with my parents Friday afternoon, after they had already done their first tour of a big palace in Seoul. It was unbelievable to see them! I took them to Myeongdong, a nice shopping area and we browsed and snacked.

The next day we went on a full day trip of the DMZ. I'm not particularly interesting in military stuff, but it was quite an experience. I don't like the situation one bit. Technically we did stand on North Korean soil which is neat I guess, but the whole day made me quite uncomfortable. It makes me sick imagining my sweet coworkers fighting in a war, and it also makes me sick thinking of the living situations of North Koreans. But either way, here are some photos!

I wasn't sure at first if the South Korean
soldiers were human because they were
so still.

The blue buildings are where meetings are held
between the North and South. Behind them is North
Korea.

North Korean soldier watching us watching him.

The armistice that ended-but-didn't-end
the war.

I agree.

We had terrible visibility, but this is North Korea.

Pretty good looking family. Missing the handsome
son of course!

Of course, even at the DMZ Korea needs to
add a little bit of cute. The beautiful blond
is my lovely mother!

Cool brushes in Insa-dong, another shopping district
with traditional stuffff.

After much shopping in Seoul, it was time to come back to Gyeongju.

It was pouring pouring rain when we arrived, and I didn't know the exactly location of my parents' guest house, but we found it. I had to work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but again my school was awesome and let me leave at lunch! Monday my parents came to school which was unbelievably cute. When I brought them up to the fourth grade a pack of adorableness followed us around in the hallway. One girl even made us each bracelets and wrote us all our own letter. My parents agreed that my school is fantastic!

I took them around to many lovely sights of Gyeongju, including Anapji Pond, Cheomsomdae, Bulguksa and Seokoram. Except for the latter, each site has already had a post in this blog!

On Thursday, my four day weekend began. We took a bus to a nearby city called Jinju. Here there was a lantern festival. The lanterns were gorgeous, and my favourite part was making our own "wish lanterns" which we later placed into the lake to float away bearing a candle inside.

However - the crowd was simply unbelievable. It was a holiday, so every person in Korea seems to have been at this festival. We were at one point carried along in a flock of humans so dense there was no choice but to go with the flow or be trampled.

Nonetheless, the lanterns were truly spectacular. There was a river with large floating lanterns over it, and an ancient fort full of lantern people, and beautiful fireworks to end the evening.

There was an international lantern section. Canada had
a pretty awesome representation!

Canada in Korea!

I haven't been surprised by Korean food for a while,
but these cephalopods seemed especially gristly.

Wish lanterns floating down the river.

Wish lanterns chilling. 

All my parents' wishes were for other people. I felt
like quite the self centered millennial when I realized
the majority of mine were for me. Oops.

The final destination  of out trip was beautiful Busan, the second biggest city in Korea. Normally when I visit, I catch a train that takes me directly to the biggest beach there called Haeundae. However, there is another beach closer to the city center called Gwangalli beach. I chose this for our hotel location because prices were insanely reduced. Turns out the second biggest beach was absolutely lovely and we had a gorgeous spot near a gorgeous beach.

In Busan I took my parents to the temple by the sea (Yonggungsa Temple, also had it's own blog post this summer), a big fish market (so different from the one in Tokyo! Instead of tuna there were flatfish, hagfish, penisfish, and giant crabs!), to the beaches and shopping. I love Busan and it was a beautiful way to end out trip.

Daddy at the beach!

I love Korea's cartoon mascots.

This store seems able to meet all of your
ceramic animal statue needs!

Swanky hotel!

Cool graffiti.  

Saying goodbye is always hard, but it was made easier given the it is official: I am coming home for Christmas. So to all my true friends who read my blog, see you SOON!

Mom and Dad, I can't thank you enough for coming to see me and my new life. I love you so much and am eternally grateful for your love too!