A Short Summary of Many Happy Weekends

So I just realized how very much I haven't written.  I've been busy and lazy, so I'll try to do a quick and dirty catch up for the two people still reading...

So, October 6th, I met Jon, a new buddy in Korea.  I was wandering down the street on a Saturday, when out of nowhere this Asian guy asks me, "Do you speak English?" He arrived the week before and hadn't met anyone who spoke English.  So we spent the afternoon hanging out, then introduced him to several people and had dinner with them.  And now I know one of the most awesome people in Korea!

We had quite a nice week in mid October at school.  Every school in Korea has its own holiday where it celebrates its founding.  Ours for some reason involved a student drag show.

I don't really get it, but it was hilarious.  The day after, we had sports day.  It was a bit of fun watching the kids compete against each other.  I also had my first sweet potato pizza, which was surprisingly delicious-the school asked the other teachers if they wanted kimbap or pizza, but for the Americans, they just figured we would want pizza.  For the record, Korean pizza is not very much like American pizza. After lunch, Allison was very sad that the teachers did not participate like she thought.  So they offered to let us run in the team obstacle race.  Allison and I were the last runners on each team.  Instead of a baton, we had to put on a long skirt, run, spin around 10 times, pop a balloon with our hips, vault over a wall, and drink something nasty, which turned out to be vinegar. DO NOT EVER DRINK VINEGAR! That was an unpleasant experience, but at least we amused some kids.  Afterward, we went downstairs to the range and I impressed myself with how fair a shot I am.

As I wrote in my last posts, I had an awesome birthday weekend.  The next weekend (the 21st), Jon and I and Jimmy (from the conversation club) went to Gangneung for an international food festival.  The festival was a bit disappointing, but we did manage to nab some half decent tacos.  We also all tried and loved bamboo tea.  After that, we wandered for a good, long while trying to find a certain coffee museum.  We eventually found it.  No one had been able to give us good directions because it was out in the middle of nowhere.  It was a fun trip though.

The next weekend (last weekend of October), I went to Busan, one of the largest cities in Korea, for a fireworks festival.  I had a rough time finding my hostel, but once I did it was pretty decent.  The next morning, I found my way to a giant shopping mall and poked about there for a while.  I also went to an art museum.  I was pretty crushed that the fireworks got canceled due to rain, but I met up with some friends from orientation and drank and danced my troubles away for several hours.  That was probably one of the best workouts I've had since coming here.

Last weekend, I went out to a 노래방(noraebang, or singing room) with Jon. Then we went to Gangneung again the morning after and met some amazing new friends there (some of whom he knew from his orientation with EPIK).  We had an action packed day of brunch, shopping, beach walking, dinner, drinks and more noraebang!  Then I stayed at my new friend's place there, because the last bus had already left.  On Sunday morning, we went to nearby Samcheok city to see Haeshindang Park...a park full of penis statues.  Unfortunately, I ended up missing the conversation club's Halloween party, but it was a great time getting pictures that will prevent us from running for political office in the future.

This weekend, just to catch us up all the way, I met a new buddy named Ashley.  She met Jon in a similar way to how he met me.  After being bereft of English speaking company for two weeks, Jon met and befriended her in a convenience store. So on Friday night, I got to meet her and walk around a bit, then we met Jon and headed to a friend's birthday dinner.  That was followed by a visit to the local ex-pat hotspot, where we hung out for a bit.  After they left, the remainder of us headed to a noraebang across the street. Although I liked the karaoke in Gangneung better, it's always fun to make an ass of oneself singing with others.

 

 Saturday morning I woke up and met Ashley, Edel (from Gangneung) and two of her friends, and we went for a hike in Meurang Valley.

 

So, all in all, it's been an adventure filled few weeks full of fun having and friend making.  School's still a bit tough, but life in Korea is pretty great, and that makes it pretty darn bearable.

K-Pop and Picnics

Last weekend, I got to experience a K-pop (Korean pop music) concert for free.  There were 7 different bands/artists performing to raise awareness for the upcoming Olympics games.  We had really awesome seats pretty close to the stage.  I don't know too much about Korean bands, but judging by the teenage screaming, some of them were quite popular.

The next day (my birthday!) I went to Murang (that's probably the wrong spelling) Valley with my English Conversation Club.  My friend told me about the club, which is for people who want to practice English.  I was very excited, because I really wanted to make some Korean friends. 

Last weekend was my second time going, and instead of meeting at the library, we went on an excursion to the valley.  We hiked a bit, then had a picnic.

After the picnic, we hiked back down and drove to this...place.  Not exactly a cafe, but this place you can go and make coffee and tea and put money for it in a box.  I think it is near a monastery, because a monk came down and gave us rice cakes.

My friend Joyce:

 Jimmy (our group leader) making tea:

Gwilym and "Kim" enjoying their drinks:

Outside there were some of the weirdest looking chickens I've seen:

"Jennifer," one of the Korean members is a music teacher, and she gave Joyce, Gwilym and me practice versions of the traditional Korean short flute.  I mostly failed miserably at producing sound, but it was still an awesome gift!

So my birthday weekend was pretty amazing.

Donghae Festival

So, it's been a couple weeks and I want to do at least one update before I go to sleep.  I'm really tired though.  Solution: lots of pictures and a few words.  So, here we go:

Last weekend was pretty cool.  There was a festival in Donghae.  Festivals are seriously abundant in Korea.  For the most part, it's food and shopping and a little entertainment.  Donghae had a nice enough sized one considering what a small town Donghae is. 

Here it is, illustrated:

Getting wasted on soju during the middle of the day is a required festival activity.  Dancing with the performers may or may not be optional.

 

Can you spot the drunk people jamming with the band?!

Mmmmm...Korean street food.  Corn dog-esque things are pretty popular here.  In addition to adding ketchup and mustard, they're usually also rolled in sugar. Yum!

At a balloon game, the operator brought his dog.  I just think Korean dog fashion is hilarious, so here's a purple eared dog:

There was this cool tent with money from all over the world.  I wish I could have read what it was about, but at least there were pretty things to look at.

Performance at the festival-I couldn't see much, because there was quite a crowd, but apparently drag comedy routines are a huge hit here.

So, now I'm quite sleepy and lazy, so I'll just publish these for your enjoyment.  Still to come: K-pop concert pictures, picnic in the mountains scenes, school festival, school sports day and festivals in Gangneung.  Stay tuned!

My Chuseok in Seoul

I'm lazy and blog posts take time, so sorry for the late update.

The last couple weeks have been easy school wise, as we had midterms then a vacation.

So last week I had several days off for the Korean holiday of Chuseok. It's sort of like Korean Thanksgiving, when Koreans go back to their hometowns, eat with their families and honor their ancestors.  And foreigners have lovely vacations! I decided to go to Seoul for the first time.  The city empties out a lot for the holiday and there are a ton of foreigners coming in, so it was a fun time.

Here's the synopsis of my vacation in Seoul. I got there Friday afternoon, and it was pouring rain.

That was amusing, as I'd not packed my umbrella or rain jacket after looking at the weather report.

So I bought a new umbrella, and I made it to the subway. Unfortunately, I did not look closely at the map, as I got off at the wrong subway stop. So, I decided to take a taxi. I was trying to figure out where to wave one down, when one just stopped in the middle of the street and yelled to me. Koreans tend to be super nice, but this was the first taxi driver that attempted to engage in conversation (probably because it was the first taxi driver who spoke decent English). He spoke decent English, so eventually we got to my hostel.

It was a really nice hostel, although not a lot of Westerners from what I saw. The owners were super fluent in English. I was in a 4 bed room, but I was the only one in there, so essentially I had a private room for about 20 dollars a night!

Once I settled in a bit, figured no one was around yet, I decided to explore. I went looking for the dog cafe, which turned out to be a short, very walkable distance away!That was fun. I sat around in a room full of dogs, drinking delicious coffee and bribing dogs to love me with treats.

So after that I went back to my hostel and turned in early-ish.

Then I got up in the morning and traveled for like an hour on the subway to get to the outskirts of Seoul and meet somebody so I could take over her cell phone contract. So I met her and then her Korean friend so that we can transfer the contract. After driving around a bit, we discover this cannot be done on the weekend.

Oops.

So in a leap of mutual stranger trust, she gave me the phone, and I gave her a copy of my relevant information so they could do it over the phone when she came back from Vietnam.

And then I had a phone! So marvelous to no longer have to make eye contact or interact in real life again. Then I went back to the hostel with my prize to play a bit.

After I had set up my phone a bit, I went to Itaewon, which is a neighborhood of Seoul that's basically the foreigner district. There is lots of shopping for Western bodies and Western food of every flavor. There, I partook of my favorite guilty travel pleasure: McDonalds.

I like to go to Mickey D's in other countries and order their unusual foods.

So I had a bulgogi burger, which was delicious.

Then I walked around enjoying the sights a bit, and got in contact with someone I knew vaguely from orientation who was coming to Seoul. We were going to meet and go to Outback, but I was traveling on the subway, and I didn't realize how long it took to get where they were...almost an hour.

So by the time I got there, I realized I had to go back.

I had bought a ticket to see Wicked. So although I was a bit frustrated from wasting two hours and still being alone, I went back and saw Wicked, which was awesome. I loved the music, so I was excited to finally see the play.

I was going to try to meet people afterward, but I had a terrible headache/neckache that was about to give me serious nausea. I went to bed instead. On Sunday when I got up, I managed to connect with my project partner from orientation to meet him. He was up earlier than all his friends, because he hadn't been drinking the night before. So we hung out a bit, walked around, then went back to his hostel to see if other people were up.

We hung out a while waiting for other people to get up. Eventually a few got up/returned

so Michael and I went with them to walk around and find lunch. They wanted to go do other stuff, so Michael and I ended up going and doing historical stuff by ourselves anyway. We went to a shrine, which was nice, although not that interesting, then to a traditional village. We walked around and did some sightseeing thereand ran into all the people from the hostel, now slightly recovered.

Afterward, we went to an Indian restaurant for dinner.  One of the people from Busan said it was voted the best Indian restaurant in Seoul.  I'm not a connoisseur, so I don't know.  It was good, and nice to eat something that's not really available in Donghae.  Afterward, we went out for a few drinks and dancing, including the most crowded club I'd ever seen.

On Monday, I met up with my cousin.  He just got stationed near Seoul.  So he managed to escape from his army duties to go sightseeing with me.  We went to an awesome palace and folk museum.

 After that, we went in search of food.  To tide us over while we wandered around, I decided to try some street food.  So we had some tasty squid, walked around a festival then I decided to try these tasty critters.  We were pretty sure they were bugs.  And I'm lying, they weren't tasty.  Thumbs down.  Definitely not the tastiest insects I've ever had.

The area we were in didn't have many restaurants, so we went back to Itaewon.  Dustin wanted some authentic Korean, so after some wandering and sneaking out of a restaurant when we looked at the menu prices, we found a nice little hole in the wall Korean restaurant in an alley.  We had some delicious bibimbap, then went to the English language bookstore.  Of course, I wanted to buy every book there, but contented myself with a magazine, seeing how I already have dozens of books unread on my Kindle.  Afterward we parted ways.

So, that was the most exciting part of my Chuseok, and further news can wait til the next blog post. 

Naked adventure time

 Time for the weekly update!  I know you all have been waiting on pins and needles for this (either that, or going about your daily lives).

So, the school situation is about the same.  Still feeling a lot of stress about managing a classroom and being a good teacher.  Thus far, doesn't seem to be the life changing career shake up I was hoping for.  But, next week is midterms (so minimal planning required on my part), followed by a 5 or 6 day holiday, so at the moment my feelings about school are a bit more positive.

My landlady, bless her, speaks not a word of English.  Every time she comes over she talks at me in Korean, and I just nod and smile.  Friday, she brought me a bed heater thing.  I thought she wasn't going to bring it until November, so the fact that she already brought it makes me greatly fear the coming cold.  WINTER IS COMING!  Scary music!  I need winter clothes!


I desperately need to learn more Korean, as sometimes it would just be nice to know what the heck is going on.  Like when I go to meet someone at our city's boat stage (it's a big stage downtown that looks like a boat.  Eventually maybe I'll take pictures of all this stuff), and there's a surprise festival or something there, with singers in traditional hanboks and...belly dancers?  It was an amazing surprise.

Also, I love Korean street food.  Yesterday, I ate something like a corn dog, except the dough was different, and I'm not really sure what kind of meat it actually was.  Oh, and the condiment selection was, "ketchup, mustard, sugar." 

My big adventure for the weekend was trying out the jimjilbang.  It's kind of a bath house with spas.  It was fun, although we got slightly lectured for apparently not scrubbing thoroughly enough before trying to get in a hot tub. 

I'm sure everyone is dying to hear what it's like to hang out naked with a bunch of naked Korean people, so I'll do a shorty synopsis.  We paid 7,000 won to get in, and we were issued a stack of towels and a lovely set of jimjilbang PJs (for the common area).  Then we went into the lady section, first storing our shoes in one locker, then handing in that key for an awesome key fob that had a key for our clothes locker and served as a charge card while we were inside.  They had a little snack bar in that section that we later grabbed some drinks from.  Inside, there's a serious shower section, where you're supposed to scrub down good before getting into the communal hot tubs.  They really take that scrub down seriously.  Then there's several pools of varying temperatures, mostly hot, but with a few frigid ones too to mix things up.  Then there's a couple steam rooms.  So, after we'd relaxed there, we put our jimjilbang pajamas on and headed upstairs to the co-ed section.  The jimjilbang has sleeping rooms where you can spend the night, a lounge with TVs, a PC bang, massage rooms, a little restaurant, and, my favorite, salt rooms.  Yes, rooms full of rock salt that are heated, and you just lay in the delicious warm salt.  Weird, but awesome.  I'll definitely try the jimjilbang again.


After the jimjilbang, I decided to walk further and explore the area.  I found a random outdoor gym park and a pet store with some adorable tiny puppies.  Good times. 

Back at home, I answered the door to a very earnest Korean woman.  I thought she was a census worker.  She desperately tried to communicate with me by talking in Korean.  I did my "smile and shrug" routine.  Later, someone told me she was probably from a church.  That made me glad I didn't understand.  :-)

Well, off for more fun times!

A Weekly Update

Well, it's been a few days.

It continues to be up and down a bit.  More of the same: generally I like Korea, but I'm still struggling with my school situation.  I don't want to complain too much.  I'm sure there are other people out there with much worse schools.  I guess I just expected teaching to be more fun than it actually is.  I didn't realize what a good student I apparently was.  I loved learning stuff.  Apparently, other students did not/do not have as much intrinsic motivation as I did.  They definitely know the English word for "candy" though.  We've started an "English dollar" reward system.   Friday,  we had dollar market, which the kids go nuts for.  So maybe positive rewards will improve class behavior.  Also thinking of a new group discipline system.  I have had a lot of advice about it.  The problem is that I'm the forgiving, pushover type and I make a really shitty disciplinarian.  So I really do need to drag one to the principal and show them I'm serious, I just hate to single one of them out.  Soon...

I'm getting a few things sorted out in the rest of my life.  I finally have a table and chair in my apartment.  I also got a bank account.  Now all I need is a phone.  I feel a bit stressed asking for anything, because I feel like my school is going to think I'm too demanding.  I haven't asked for much, just the super basic stuff that's in my contract, and even that not forcefully or completely. I still feel uncomfortable though, especially when they ask things like, "Why do you need a table?" Why do you think?  I know sitting on the floor is much more common here, but my American joints are not comfortable with that.  I always hate asking for anything, and the fact that I'm sort of helpless here makes it really difficult.

Yesterday we (I and some new ex-pat friends) went to the squid festival.  I gotta say, festivals are probably more fun when you understand more of what's going on, but it was still pretty neat.  Some Korean grandmas were enjoying the festival by drinking soju and singing.  Their business-men looking husbands invited us up for some soju, which was kind of funny. The fish market was really cool (although I felt bad for the various sea creatures awaiting their doom).  I caught a fish in a pool.  Maybe I'm eligible to be on Hillbilly Handfishing now!  Then we climbed quite a lot of steps to get to a lighthouse with a heck of a view.  Then we went to this sweet little cafe owned by a German guy and his Korean wife, who have apparently biked all the way to Europe.  Sorry I'm crap at taking pictures!  I need to get a new camera. 

Well, I'm nursing my first little Korean cold, so that's all I'm writing for today.  I leave you with some pictures:  a random, tasty drink from the convenience store that I bought so I could know what eating beauty tastes like, and a random photo spot up on the mountain yesterday.

A Random Blurb On Korea And Cancer

It might just be me, but Korean people seem really worried about cancer.

A lovely Korean lady in Emart (it's amazing how random people speak English) gave me a sample of yogurt drink and eagerly told me that it helped prevent cancer. 

I've also heard the same about kimchi, which is apparently a miracle food that cures everything from cancer to the common cold. 

I love weekends.  I love having weekends off again.  That's awesome.  Today I went around for a bit with another EPIK teacher and some of her friends from orientation.  Lots of fun, although I'm a bit jealous of her situation (she got a really posh apartment and what sounds like a completely sweet job; I feel a bit screwed in comparison).  Then again, plenty of others have it worse off, so I need to try a bit harder to look on the bright side.

Korean people are generally quite nice, especially when they're not terrified about speaking English.  Or even when they have no English sometimes.  I'm getting better at communicating with very few words, so I get awfully proud of myself when I can tell a cab driver a destination.  One of the cabs I took today had a lovely driver who was so friendly without saying anything in English.  I think he asked if I was Filipino.  Fortunately, I know how to say "America" in Korean!  미국 ("mi [me] gook). There's your word of the day people!  I think he told me my Korean or Korean pronunciation was really good, which I found quite amusing.  Or he could have been saying something else entirely, I just shrugged and smiled, and he kept talking.

By the way-try dak galbi if you're in Korea!  Delish.

Happy Day in Donghae

So I think my Fridays might be glorious here.  No middle school classes!  Yay!  And school ends early, yay!  I love having a head start on the weekend. 

I survived my first full week.  Can't lie, teaching is much rougher than I expected.  Discipline for my middle school kids (especially my M2 class of boys) is ROUGH.  I'm trying some new things, and I think I'll make behavior a part of their grade, 'cause I'm sick of their shit.  And I will hopefully get some long term curriculum/semester planning done this weekend so I'll feel more on top of my game.  Ideally would have done that before school started, but since I had no information about anything until less than 24 hours before I came here, it really wasn't an option. 

So I've been passing out a lot of hard candy as bribes...I mean, rewards...and naturally, well, when candy's just sitting there, I gotta try some, right?  So today I had a little oopsie and ended up with a chipped tooth.  Fortunately, Allison is religious about getting her teeth cleaned and was planning on going to the dentist. So we went together to Charm Dental.  And they were charming. Most of the staff spoke great English, especially one of the dentists who Allison knew (I think she's the mom of one of the kids at our school).  Korea may be disorganized about a lot of things, but it has healthcare figured out.  Korea has a pretty awesome national healthcare plan, which apparently includes dental care.  I haven't gotten my official Alien Registration Card, but the amazing dentists there did an inspection and polished off my little chip for free, and told me to come back for a proper checkup and such when I got my ARC. 

Then I had a bit of retail therapy and bought a flannel shirt, which will be nice when winter hits.  We got "teacher discounts."  Just a couple dollars, but super sweet.  Korean people in general are very nice. 

After that, Allison and I grabbed some coffee at a place called French Kiss.  Well, Allison had an iced coffee, I had a "sweet potato latte."  Adventure!  I was expecting to be slightly squicked out, but it was AWESOME!  It was like drinking liquid mashed sweet potatoes-delish.

Then we went our separate ways until later tonight, and I finally wandered into a Korean beauty store (Etude House).  So I am currently trying a mask.  Maybe I, too, can have skin as lovely as a Korean woman's!  Meh, probably not, but a girl can try.  And I'll just go ahead and ignore that it's probably full of weird parabens and other "beauty" chemicals that I would never put on my skin in the US. 

So, outside of school, I'm enjoying Donghae alright.  Hopefully I'll get to do some hiking and visit a jimjilbang this weekend.

Ciao, dahlings.

Surviving My First Week of Teaching

So, it has been one week of teaching so far.  That went pretty fast.  I still feel in over my head.  After all, I was expecting to be an assistant teacher, and instead was essentially thrown in the deep end. 

I'm hoping to get my goals for the semester and such ironed out and try to get discipline under control.  My youngest kids are awesome (good at English, obedient, respectful and enthusiastic).  The older ones...yeah, we're working on it. The first couple weeks have been total day-by-day survival mode.  www.waygook.org has saved my hiney. Thank you fellow English teachers for posting amazing lessons for my older middle school students to ignore. 

The discipline is getting a LITTLE better, because now I have some Korean teachers in my worst classes (part of the time at least).  My amazing fellow American teacher gently strong-armed them for me ("In her contract. Must have Korean teacher in class.  If no Korean teacher, she tells EPIK office.  School gets in trouble.") Thank you, Allison! 

So, small improvements.  Still kind of wish I hadn't caved on the provincial placement, but oh well.  C'est la vie.  I also have high hopes of getting a table soon (from the school).  I might even get my bank account and phone this week!  Maybe...

Last night I figured out how to turn on my gas range all by myself.  I did a happy dance with a little song.  Feeling totally incompetent at everything has a silver lining:  when you figure out simple stuff, you feel like a friggin' genius!  Yay, I turned two knobs and was a semi-success at cooking corn dogs in a pan!  Oh yeah, I've got to buy a microwave.  I was going to try to live without one, but screw that.  I am far too incompetent and/or lazy to cook food properly.

Today, I saw a toy poodle.  Oh, it was a glorious poodle!  If only I had had my iPod or camera to take a picture!  It's true that there are some restaurants that still serve dog as food here, but apparently they're pretty uncommon and not really very popular.  And when people have dogs as pets here, they do crazy stuff.  This glorious tiny white poodle was sporting the traditional poodle cut and wearing a cute vest leash.  Ah, but the best was its dye job.  Its ear fur was dyed pink, and its little leg poofs were electric blue.  Such a gorgeous poodle I shall never see again, I'm sure.

Well, just wanted to keep in the habit of updating for my small, but faithful, following.  Love to you all, until next time!

First Post from Donghae, South Korea

So, brief recap to catch us up: lesson went well enough at orientation.  In the afternoon, I found out my placement: Donghae Sahmyook Academy.

So, Donghae is where I've been since Tuesday.  It's a mid-sized town (I've seen varying reports on numbers, from 100,000-150,000 people), on the east coast.

At this point, I'm sort of regretting agreeing to a provincial placement.  I wanted a big city, but said I'd be flexible when my coordinator told me that all the metropolitan places were filled.

I was the second to last person picked up from the bus stop, and the gentleman who picked me up confirmed my suspicions (I'd Googled the school the day before): it's a religious, 7th Day Adventist private school.  Not that I have to teach religious classes or anything, but they did tell me the first day that I shouldn't drink, smoke, or wear accessories.  Which means I can do these things, I just have to lie.  Oh yeah, and the awesome drinking soju and eating with co-workers that's supposed to be part of Korean work culture is not happening here.  This would have been a deal breaker for me if I'd known it was an option when I was signing up.

I also don't have a co-teacher.  The head of the English department is our go-to guy who helps me out with some stuff, but basically they gave me a class schedule and expected me to teach from day 1.  Fortunately there's another American teacher at the school who is awesome. I teach 3 middle school classes (one from each level) 4 times a week and then 4 different high school classes once each every week.  So it averages out to about 3 middle school and one high school class per day, then I'll be having a couple others later.  So, so far, I kind of hate middle school kids.  They're crazy little mo-fo's. 

Well, I guess I should do a little lesson planning for the upcoming week...I was so unprepared for this.  I shall leave you with a few pictures and a video tour of my apartment:

My desk at work: Somebody put apples on all the teachers' desks.  I don't think it was actually a child though.

Downtown Donghae

WA Bar (a bar with a bunch of beers from all over the world). This picture is for my Dortmund friends!

Glorious, lovely E-mart.  I love these umbrella bag things-I don't know if I've seen any such nifty wet-umbrella-bagging-things in the USA

"The Sensitive Soap Dish"  -don't hurt it's feelings!  I <3 Konglish.

 

^ Video tour of my apartment!

A Few Pictures From Orientation

Okay peeps, finally an update.  Sorry, it's been hectic.  Here's some photos I didn't have a chance to put up before:

Tasty airport snacks: the sparkling green tea tasted like Sprite, the other drink is some kind of rice water and the snack cake tasted like a Twinkie.

Seoul as seen from the bus

Opening ceremony special performance by a traditional Korean instrument orchestra

Looks like Icebreakers gum from the States, tastes like ***.  Okay, actually it tastes like a Halls cough drop, but when you're expecting mint, it's an unpleasant surprise.

Awesome random wrestling statues outside the gymnasium at orientation

At a museum we visited: In case of fire, place this bag over your head. Or, you know, you could follow the exit signs...

Another delightful musical performance for us!

Same place, this set is playing some really loud music that's supposed to symbolize a rain storm or something.

At our awesome Korean pottery excursion: we got to paint some pottery, then they gave us chunks of clay to play with while we waited for everyone to finish