On Friday after Sports Day the principal told Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Kim to show me around Naju, so we went to the illustrious Naju Pear Museum!!! I've been meaning to go all year, just to find out what they could possibly put in a pear museum, and strangely enough, they had filled the place with pears. Plastic samples, sculpted pears as art, and my favourite: the "freak pears" in jars that reminded my of visiting a freak show and seeing two-headed babies in jars. Then from there Mrs. Lee and her husband took me to a ridiculously beautiful temple (the name eludes me) near Gwang-ju. At the top of one of the mountains nearby there was a huge reclining Buddha carved out of rock, which was very cool. In Korea there is a superstition that if a pregnant woman steals a piece of a Buddha, she will have a boy. So many of the smaller stone statues were missing ears and their nose. After climbing around the temple (I fell into a thorny bush and almost fell down the side of the mountain at one point... I'm so graceful) we went to Mrs. Lee's house for dinner, which was delicious.
Then on Saturday I headed over to Mokpo for a party being held for some teacher's whose contracts have ended and they're going home. Near Yudal Mountain there is an old abandoned school with a big open field, and that's where everyone decided to have a bonfire. So as we're sitting around, singing and whatnot (guitars are excellent around a campfire), a cop car shows up, flashing it's headlights at us. Afew people go over to talk to the po-po and we find out that the property has been bought by some people. So the police called the owners, asking if a bunch of random foreigners can stay for a while!! So after some bargaining and photo opportunities, the police leave with a warning to leave in two hours and clean up after ourselves!! Nice!! So we sang some more songs, lit some fireworks, cleaned up and left. All in all, a good weekend.
So now I'm back at work, and as of yesterday, I am officially going to be leaving Korea in three months!! Time is flying, but I'm also excited about going back to Canada and seeing everyone!
3 comments:
Hahaha I can't believe you had a bonfire outside an old abandoned school. It sounds like some weird story from...uh... Korea, I guess. Cool!
I've got one for you Cathy. Over May long weekend we went camping and the guys found a bunch of free junk on the road they wanted to burn. One of which was a big board with a poem by Helen Keller. To see it go up in huge flames with the guys chanting the poem in the firelight -- it was sooo wrong. But funny ...
Ouch for Helen Keller. Is her poetry any good?
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