inspiration

Most of the notebooks here have some sort of cheesy inspirational message on the front of them. These two are unique in that they actually are cool and they're grammatically correct:

How to enjoy your life:
Do something new for a change
Don't forget you're special

While the circumstances of life are
such that everyone must undergo
a certain amount of temporary defeat,
you can find hope in the knowledge
that every such defeat carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit.

tried and true

In general, it's easy to discipline my younger classes, because they all have sticker charts they want to fill. They can get a maximum of three stickers a day, but I take stickers away if they're not behaving well or speaking Korean. Kids who lose all their stickers two days in a row shape up pretty fast.

But I run into a lot of trouble with the classes who are too old to care about stickers, so I'm constantly trying to come up with good ways to discipline them. I recently tried having them write sentences, and it worked really well -- especially when I told them I would send the papers home with their evaluations at the end of the month. I get a total kick out of it, so the trick is to not laugh while they're writing.

Jeju-do: Day 1

After 5 months of teaching, I finally got my summer vacation. I would actually call it a long weekend (we only got three days off of work), but we were all very grateful for the break. My coworker, Jaime, and I went to Jeju-do, the island off the southwest coast of Korea. It's a pretty small island, so we rented scooters once we got there and cruised around the whole time. Thursday evening we took a train from Daejeon to Mokpo, and then took a boat to Jeju the next morning.
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Some very fancy street lights in Mokpo.
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Mokpo city lights.
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A bell at the top of a little "mountain" -- they call everything a mountain here, but seeing as how we reached the top in about 5 minutes, I'd say that's a pretty piddly mountain. The sky really was that red, though.
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One very common sight in Korea (as you will see), is people sleeping on benches. Foreigners here stand out very well, so Jaime and I thought it best to try to blend in, which quickly became the theme for our trip. Jaime blending in with two men who came to hang out at the little park. They were pretty cool; the one dancing spoke English, but I liked that they weren't really phased by seeing us there and didn't try to talk to us the whole time.

Day 2

Waiting to board the ferry, and these pictures aren't even posed. One of the workers at the terminal actually had to wake us up to board. But as you can see, we weren't the only ones sleeping on benches that day.
(Jaime)

This is the room we were assigned to for the entire 5-hour boat ride. Of course we could get up and walk around the boat, but this is how almost everyone on the boat was stowed. Jaime and I felt like we'd really found our people on this ferry -- nobody thought twice about sleeping wherever they found a good place.


Once we got to the island, we rented scooters and the couple we rented them from gave us all this awesome gear. Remember, it's all about blending in.
A good shot on our ride to the southern end of the island.

Day 3

Saturday morning we headed east to check out some sights listed in my travel guide.
. Sanbangsan, a mountain with a cave halfway up that was turned into a temple (Sanbanggulsa). The temple is as far as you can climb, because the mountain is considered too sacred for anyone to climb to the top.
. A view from the mountain.
. A fountain in the temple, which is filled by constant drips from the ceiling of the cave. The water is said to be medicinal so I drank some (three cup fulls, like the monk said). However, now I have a cough.
. Part of the southwest coastline.
. Across the street from the Sanbangsan was the Yongmeori coastline. It was a pretty small area, but the cliffs were beautiful. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

A shot of the cliffs from near the water.
. There were a lot of women along the water selling raw seafood and soju (cheap Korean hard alcohol, which people drink all times of the day). We passed on the snack.
. One of the women getting fresh water for her produce.
. More Yongmeori coastline.

Two more blending in pictures, haha: The world-cup stadium on the way back to the hotel that night. It really fits the sea them of the island, doesn't it. I liked it more every time we drove past.

Day 4

On Sunday we rode to Sangumburi crater, which is supposedly one of the highlights of the island. For a 3,000won admission fee, we were very disappointed by it. But I think anybody coming to Korea from the PNW (Jaime is from WA also) is set up for disappointment when it comes to mountains.
This is all Jaime had to say.
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The most exciting part of the crater: the over-sized gift shop.
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Back on the road, looking for a good beach.


There's nothing like finishing up a day in good Korean style: a bottle of soju from a convenience store at 1,250won/bottle really beats 6,000won/mixed drink at the bar across the street. And no night out would be complete without a good two hours in the noraebong (singing room, below). They're not usually this creepy -- it was just an added bonus.

Day 5

On Monday, we went west again and stuck to the coastline. We rode about 230 km that day, about 2/3 the way around the island, but then cut back to the hotel and saved the rest of the coast for Tuesday.
. Every morning Jaime and I would stop at E-mart and get rolls and ham to pack up and eat on the road for lunch. We figured that if we were on vacation we shouldn't have to eat Korean food. But when I saw the bulk kimchee counter one morning I couldn't keep myself from buying a bag and some instant rice to eat for breakfast.
. A ravine near our hotel. Like a river of rocks; cool.
. Some women working in a field on one of the coast roads we took. There was a lot of farmland off the main roads, and all the fields were sectioned off with walls of stacked lava rock. I can't imagine all the work that went into making all those walls. We drove past kilometer after kilometer of them every day.
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There were a lot of bicyclists on the roads, but Jaime and I were extremely grateful for being on scooters. It was so hot, I don't know how the bikers weren't passing out from the heat.

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Coastline views:

Jaime got in a fight with a nasty-looking water bug while exploring the rocks. I think the bug won.
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Picnickers.

Jaime was really excited to find a bathroom. It being a sandcastle was an added bonus.

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The enormous spider hanging outside the door was a big minus, so we continued on. This spider was at least 3 inches long.

The second sandcastle had its own little surprises within. Strike two.

One more try. This time there was a Jeju man (called a harubang) nearby, and we read that you can make wishes by holding their noses.

Strike three. Rocks are a safer bet.

These little plow carts were everywhere. There were also tons of old farm women driving around on scooters with huge "training wheels" on them. They were pretty hilarious. They seemed to be the Jeju grannies' transportation of choice.