24th Birthday and Finishing the Stamp Book!

This past weekend, I celebrated my 24th birthday with friends and was able to finish the Daegu Stamp Book! It was a really good weekend, and the only weekend this month that we are spending/spent in Daegu.

On Saturday afternoon, I had planned to visit Dodong Seowon Confucian Academy with one of my coteachers at school. Unfortunately, she had to cancel because she was feeling sick. Instead, I recruited the help of Max and Serena (who have a car) to get me there. You can get there on public transport, but it's a big hassle. It takes about 2 hours, and you, basically, need to take a taxi part of the way. It's about a half hour away from our house in a really remote section of Daegu.

Dodong Seowon Confucian Academy is one of the five most important Confucian Academies in all of Korea. It was first established in 1568, but the original buildings were burned by the Japanese during their invasion in 1592. Dodong Seowon was reconstructed in 1605 in its current location. Outside the Academy, there is a 400 year old gingko tree. The Academy is surrounded by beautiful mountains and feels as though it is hidden from the outside world a bit. Waking around there was very relaxing. After Dodong Seowon, we all went back to Max and Serena's place for a bit until it was time to head downtown for dinner and a trip to the cake cafe for my birthday!

I decided I wanted to get pasta as my birthday dinner, so Matthew suggested a place called Italy Italy. The food was really good, and the concept was unique. Italy Italy is a make-your-own pasta and pizza place. You get a form (that is written in English as well as Korean!) and on the form you choose either pizza or pasta, what sauce you want, what toppings, etc. It was really cool. Serena, Max, Matthew, Maria, Ben, Marie, and Stef were there to celebrate my birthday. During dinner, Matthew and Maria gave me an awesome canvas bag with a mustache on the front. I love all the mustache products that Korea sells, so it was the perfect bag for me. Inside, they had given me a shot glass from South Africa (thanks Sian!) and some really cute stationary stuff, including some finger shaped post-its that are called "Finger It"s! That's up at the top of my list of poor English used in Korea. Hilarious! I didn't even notice the best part of the present until Maria suggested I continue to look at the bag. When I turned it over, Matthew, Sian, and Thomas had decorated the blank side with a very realistic drawing of Korea made to look like our favorite board game, Ticket to Ride. My friends are so freaking creative and wonderful! It was a really awesome gift. Thank you so much guys!

I have wanted to go to a cake cafe for a really long time, and what better time to go there than on a birthday!? Cake cafes are places where you can buy a blank, undecorated cake or cupcakes and decorate them yourself! It's an awesome idea, and not that expensive at all. We all ordered 4 cupcakes, which cost about $10. Each cupcake was a different flavor: chocolate chip, strawberry, cappuccino, and almond. With the cupcakes, you get two kinds of frosting: white and a flavor of your choice. Gianni and I got coffee frosting. The middle section of the cafe has display cases full of all kinds of sugar decorations to add to the cupcakes. Each thing is a different price, but Gianni and I spent around $5 extra on the decorations. Not bad for 4 cupcakes! I made myself a birthday cupcake, which was probably the best one I made. It didn't take long to do, but I think we all enjoyed ourselves. My friends sang me "Happy Birthday," and Maria attempted to put frosting on my face, but it ended up in my hair. :) Everyone decided to go to the board game cafe for a few hours after the cake cafe. It was a really great birthday party!

On Sunday, I had two more places to visit in order to complete the stamp trail. Gianni didn't feel like getting up early with me, so that was fine. First, I went to Yuksinsa Shrine. I was a bit worried about getting there because it's in a remote part of the city. On Google Maps, it looks like there's nothing around this place. I purposefully got off the bus in a more populated-looking area so that, in case the second bus was going to take too long to come, I could easily get a taxi. Fortunately, I got to the transfer stop, and the bus to the shrine came very soon. It was a branch bus, which Gianni and I have had trouble with in the past, but, luckily, this was the correct branch of the bus! I was the only one on the bus, sothe bus driver tried to make conversation. I think he thought I spoke more Korean than I do, but he was very friendly. He even tried to help me figure out where I was once we got to the stop. The Shrine itself is located in a small village comprised of traditional Korean homes, or Hanoks. The history of the shrine is an interesting one. King Danjong of the Joseon Dynasty succeeded to the throne at age 12. Given his young age, his uncle, Sejo, decided to stage a coup and seized power in 1453. The following year, six officials of court attempted to put Danjong back on the throne, but their plan was discovered, and they were executed. Yuksinsa Shrine now houses the mortuary tablets of these six men. Memorial ceremonies are held yearly for the men, and I happened to visit the Shrine on one of these days! I took some pictures of all the men praying and doing the ancestral rituals in their traditional attire. People kept trying to talk to me, and, again, I think they thought I spoke more Korean than I do. Still, they were very interested in me and kept offering me lunch. I was a little confused about what was going on. Once the praying was over, a few more men started talking to me and taking pictures with me. They thought it was hilarious that a foreigner was there I think. One of the ancestors of the Korean heroes sat me down at one of the tables to eat lunch with them. He put me down next to two other visitors of the Shrine who were from another city in Korea. They didn't speak much English, but they were a very nice couple. The food was delicious! We had a stew, fruit, rice cakes, and some bonchon (side dishes). When we were finished, Mr. Park (the man who sat me down to eat) gave me a big bag of rice cakes and a small towel commemorating the event! What a sweet thing to do for a foreigner who has no idea whats going on. The couple even drove me back to the bus stop so I didn't have to wait for the bus! 


My final stop in the Korean version of the Daegu Stamp Trail was Daegu Shooting Range. I had never been shooting before, so I was really eager to try it. It's actually really close to Maria and Matthew's house, but you have to get a taxi from that part of Daegu since the buses that go to the shooting range are really infrequent. The shooting range is apparently way more expensive than it would be at home, but shooting isn't something a lot of Koreans do, so it's kind of a novelty I guess. There are several options for shooting: "combat zone," screen shooting (which is just like a video game on a large screen), air rifle target shooting, pistol shooting, and clay target shooting. The shooting range has a "combat zone" area set up outside for practice shooting around barriers. Maybe they use paintballs or airsoft or something. I opted for the pistol shooting. They had two guns available to choose from, and I chose a 9mm automatic gun. It cost $16 for 10 shots. You have to put on a vest and headphones before going in to shoot. The staff does everything for you, and the gun is actually attached to the sides of the booth in order to prevent you from turning the gun around to face the people looking through the glass windows. The staff, in broken English, explained how to aim and let me take a few practice shots. Then, he loaded the gun for me, and I just shot. I had no idea what I was doing really, but I ended up getting 9 shots on the target and four of those were 9's! I was kind of proud of myself for this being my first time! I didn't do any other shooting, but it was really fun to try it for the first time. I'll have to make dad take me to another one when I get home.

So the stamp trail is finally finished, and I am all set to submit the book and get my surprise prize for finishing it. It was really fun to do, but it came down to the wire, and I am glad to now get a break from it for a while. I saw some really cool places in Daegu that I would otherwise not have seen, and I feel like I understand and know a lot more about Daegu than I did before.

Because Sian and Thomas were unable to make it on Saturday, Gianni and I got dinner and went to the board game cafe with them on Tuesday for birthday shenanigans. We taught them the new game we played on Saturday. The owner of the board game cafe, who knows us all since we go in so much, just gave us this game, called Love Letter, on Saturday. We didn't ask him for it, but I think he wanted to watch us play it since it was new. It's a really simple card game, but it's more fun than it sounds at first. Sian and Thomas and Gianni and I don't really hang out a lot without other friends around, so it was really nice to spend some one-on-one time with them. I really appreciate that they cared enough about me to celebrate my birthday separately since they couldn't make it on Saturday. Love you guys!

On my actual birthday, I had a really funny interaction with one of my students. I told them it was my birthday, and I wrote my age on the board. One of the kids looks at me and goes, "Oh! Teacher German!" I was like "Ummmmm....I'm not German." My coteacher then explained that the word "German" in English sounds like the Korean word for "young!" It was really funny. Gianni and I decided to go to a restaurant downtown to celebrate. We went down right after school and spent some time browsing our favorite shops to check out the new products. We also went to a new store right across from the board game cafe, called Neverland. No idea how long that shop is going to stay around, but it deals exclusively in realistic animal stuffed animals! It's the weirdest/cutest thing, but they are really expensive stuffed animals. I don't see how this store could actually turn a profit, especially since they have several $2500 massive stuffed animals in the windows to attract customers. After walking around for a bit, we got dinner at 55 Dining, the place we went to for our anniversary. It is a set 6-course menu for only $16 per person, and the menu changes depending on the season. The spring menu was fantastic, so we really wanted to go back and try it in the fall. It was partially Italian influenced. One course was a pizza on a flaky pastry, and another was fried chicken and risotto. All the courses were really delicious, especially the blueberry pie with canned milk served in a little jar. I decided that wasn't enough dessert for my birthday though, so we stopped to get pieces of cake on the way home.

sign says "no money for long sleeves"

In addition to it being my birthday week, my school had two special days in a row this Thursday and Friday. They were both awesome! Thursday was Sports Day. They compete with their homerooms against the other homerooms in the grade. I believe there is a winner from each grade, and the winning team got money to get pizza for their class--sounds like a fantastic prize to me! To start the day, the PE teachers led all the students in a group stretch on the soccer field out in front of the school. All of my grade 3 kids were dressed up in all kinds of crazy costumes. I asked Sun Mi why none of the other

relay obstacle course

grades were wearing costumes, and she told me that the grade 3 students had told the grade 1 and 2 kids that they weren't allowed to wear any! What bullies! hahaha. I guess it's their prerogative as the oldest kids in the school. There were some really great costumes--hanbok, Simpsons PJs, Hawaiian, etc--but my favorite costume was the team wearing matching blue floral t-shirts and shorts in October! The sports day was supposed to have been in the Spring, but it was delayed because of the Sewol ferry accident. They ordered their costumes before the date was changed and decided not to get new one! They actually went

Mrs. Bae cheering on her team

around with a big sign that said, "No money for long shirts!" It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen! These kids are hilarious. The sports day competitions included relay races, obstacle course relay races, tug of war, jump rope, and a Korean game called Nott Dari Balgi. In that game, one students is lifted by two other students on either side. The student then walks over the backs of his or her classmates who are bent over. The line moves across the field as the person walking get towards the end of the line. It was kind of a dangerous game. There was another Korean game where all the students in one class lined up on the

Korean game called "Nott Dari" or bride walking

field. Then, two students from the class had to run across the field each holding one end of a rope with a plastic tube in the center to hold it to the ground. Basically, they are dragging this rope across the field, and the other students need to jump over it when it comes in one direction and duck under it when it comes in the other direction. There were some serious spills and a few tears, but it was fun to watch. It's interesting to see the games that are played in other countries. The tug of war was really fun because, after the students competed with each other, there was a special teacher and parent against student competition. The students seemed to select mostly really strong boys to go against us, which, if you ask me, isn't fair at all. We obviously lost, but it was a lot of fun to try. My hands were shaking after! Even though I didn't get to participate in sports day very much, it was amazing to get to interact with my students outside the normal classroom setting. I just kept walking around to the different homerooms and talking to my students on a more personal level. It was a really wonderful day, and I wish we could have more like that.

The beautiful, talented girl in front speaks wonderful English

The boy on the right in white is my c-level who is a great dancer.

Today was the school's talent show AND school festival day. In the morning, we got to go to a nearby church with all the kids to see the talent show. It was excellent. This year, they did a much better job with the flow between performers. The first part was all very cultured and sophisticated--one girl did ballet, a few girls played piano, a body played the trumpet, and one class played the recorder together. The transition to the second part was listed in the programs as a "flash mob," but I don't think Koreans really grasp the concept. It was just a few friends who got together and did a funny dance. The second part of the show was all singing and dancing to K-Pop songs. I really wish we had gotten to see more magic tricks, like last year, but the amazing piano players more than made up for it. There was a slew of what I would deem school-inappropriate dancing from the girls again. I am really torn in my head between "should I be watching this?" and "damn, these girls are really good dancers!" Some of my best students are up there shaking their bums and humping the floors...it's a strange situation to be put in. What stands out to me the most is just how supportive the students were of their classmates who were performing. One girl in my C-level class is very quiet in class but also quite good at English for her level. She stops to talk to me a lot after class is finished. I always thought that, because she was so quite, she might not be very popular. She performed at the talent

my C-level girl can belt!

show, and there were plenty of people cheering for her as soon as she got on the stage. I had no idea, but she has an incredible singing voice. I absolutely love

He is playing the janggu

being able to see a different side to my students. That's what these last two days were about--getting to see other facets of their personalities and interact with them outside the classroom. It's an amazing feeling. There were other times when a student would make a mistake or forget some words to their songs, but the entire audience cheered them on for encouragements whenever that happened. The students were all so kind and supportive of one another! They are really good kids. Another one of my c-level students danced. I suspect that he is a c-level more because he doesn't care about school than because he doesn't understand English well. He was at camp, and he has told me he likes dancing before, but it was nice to get to see it for real. He and his friends were incredible! They did some very popular K-Pop songs that I know and enjoy.

Doing their zombie makeup on their hands

making masks

After the talent show, we ate lunch and got ready for the school festival. Rhys and I were tasked with creating an English booth for the festival, and it was suggested that we do the topic of Halloween. I took the lead as Halloween isn't as popular in England as it is in the US. For a few weeks, I've been planning my activities and making signs. I chose to have the students really experience Halloween by making costumes (face painting, doing zombie makeup, or making masks), taking pictures with their friends (photobooth style with instant cameras and Halloween props), and getting candy when they say "trick-or-treat." This is something that I couldn't feasibly do on a normal day in class, but I think it's wonderful that they see what it's like to celebrate Halloween in the US. I think they really got to experience another culture without me just telling them about it like I usually have to. I think it was fairly successful. Most students didn't really go all out with the costumes, but we ran out of masks, and I was teaching them to do zombie makeup with toilet paper constantly! Rhys and I wore Gianni and my dinosaur costumes from last year, and the kids thought we were really cute.  Sun Mi was kind enough to take a whole bunch of pictures for me while I was working. It was really nice that all my coteachers were so helpful is setting up, running, and cleaning up the English booth. It was definitely a team effort. It was probably one of the most fun experiences I've had at school so far. I hope the students had as much fun as I did.