School is Almost Done

Our last semester of teaching English in Korea is coming to a close. Gianni's semester will be finished this week, and he has camp next week. In 2 weeks, he will teach an additional camp at a high school near his middle school. I don't have any extra camps. My school semester finishes next week, and I have my own camp in 2 weeks. I like to give my kids a reward at the end of each semester, so I usually show a movie during the last class. That's what I've been doing this week. Before I start the movie though, I'm saying goodbye to my kids, taking a picture with each class, and asking them to sign the papers I prepared. Most of them have been cooperative and some are genuinely sad I'm leaving, especially since they know they aren't getting another foreign teacher, at least for a while. I've given out my email, so I hope I have a ton of little Korean pen pals soon. Teaching really isn't my favorite job of all time, which is why I want to go home, but interacting with my students makes everything worthwhile. In addition to saying goodbye to my students, we have also been saying goodbye to the other teachers at our schools. On Sunday, I made a ton of banana and pumpkin bread to give to all the teachers. Despite the fact that they kept getting stuck in the pan and crumbling, I managed to make enough for everyone. All the breads got rave reviews at both schools!

My camp schedule has been changed a lot. All of the previous camps I've done were 5 days with the same group of kids each day. I usually had one theme per day or one theme that built throughout the week. This semester though, my camp schedule is only 3 days, teaching for 3.5 hours a day. Each day, I will see a different group of kids, so I only need to plan one day and then use it again for the other two days. I'm planning a movie camp this year. Originally, I was going to have the kids make their own short movies, but I don't think 3.5 hours is enough time, especially if I have to do an introduction and explain the concepts and all that. I'm going to take some of the same ideas though. I'll teach the kids about the basic parts of a story, movie careers, and movie genres. They will come up with their own movie characters and plots and create a movie poster for their ideas. I hope it's fun. There are a lot of video clips, and we have snacks to give the kids, so that should keep them entertained.

We are getting closer and closer to coming home! We might need to send one more box home once we get closer to leaving, after I've packed a bit and seen what will fit and what won't. 2 of the 3 boxes that we mailed home by boat have made it home thus far, so that's good. I'm hoping that the box I sent by air with all our souvenirs and breakables will make it soon. We've been selling some of the items that are not coming back with us on the Daegu Flea Market facebook group, getting about half what we paid for back for the items, so not terrible. We will probably donate some things to a new charity in Daegu for unwed mothers.

Hanji Shop and Factory

down to the hanok village. It's funny how much we remembered from orientation, even though it was raining, and we were mostly focusing on staying dry. We checked out the old city wall gate and the church where the hanok village begins. The main street of the village was closed to most traffic, so it was nice to be able to walk around freely. There were a lot of people and some sort of small craft fair was going on. Although I took a peak at some of the stalls along the way, I knew that I would find exactly what I wanted at the Hanji Center where I bought the first fans. It's the only place in Korea that sells the 100% hanji fans in all kinds of beautiful patterns and colors. I have looked in all the cities I have visited since summer vacation, and I haven't been able to find fans like the ones I gave as gifts. We found the Hanji Center really easily. I was very proud of myself for remembering how to get there because I'm usually terrible at directions. The Hanji Center is down a really small alley between the hanok guest houses. There's a wooden arch over the entrance, and you have to walk around the back of a small building where they produce their own hanji in order to get to the small shop that sells (in my opinion) the best hanji in Korea. I found exactly what I was looking for there, and we left with 4 beautiful, new fans with all kinds of designs. I plan on hanging them on my wall someday soon. By the time we finished our shopping, we were both getting really hungry. Not only that, but the weather in Korea has been super rainy and humid since it's now monsoon season. I don't remember it being this bad last year, but I heard Korea was in a drought before, so I guess it needed the rain. 

Raw Beef Bibimbap

A famous bibimbap restaurant in Jeonju

Anyway, Jeonju was even more hot and humid than Daegu was. The air was so heavy, and I was pouring sweat as soon as we got off the bus. It was really uncomfortable. I don't care what people say--Jeonju, not Daegu, is the hottest city in Korea. Both times we have been there now it was extremely hot and humid. We decided to get out of the heat and go get lunch. Jeonju has another famous product besides the paper, and that is bibimbap. Bibimbap is a traditional Korean food. It is rice with a raw egg, mixed veggies, and a little spicy sauce on top. You can get it in a stone bowl or the traditional metal bowl. Jeonju has its own style of bibimbap that is really popular in Korea, so we decided to find one of the famous restaurants in the city to get some. Just a short walk away from the hanok village, we found the restaurant recommended to us by the women at the information booth. It was on the second floor of a building. The restaurant was not showy at all and looked a lot like a cafeteria, but it was plenty busy. We were strategic and sat directly in front of the air conditioner. Gianni ordered the traditional bibimbap, and I ordered a special kind that had small strips of raw beef in it. Both were delicious and came with all kinds of side dishes on a platter. We didn't rush through our meal as we were in no hurry to go back outside. When we finally did finish our food and go outside, we almost immediately decided to head back to the train station and go home. Neither of us could handle the heat anymore, and I had got the bibimbap and fans that I came for. We didn't have a long time to wait before the bus back to Daegu departed. We ended up staying in Jeonju only for about 3 hours. Oh well! 3 hour bus, 3 hours in Jeonju, 3 hour bus again.