On the pursuit of happiness

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxox

I leave after the weekend for Vietnam/Laos/whatever else I happen to stumble upon.

I am quite excited, yet sad to be away from home for yet another Christmas.  My decision.  I’ll deal.

So, I am off.  To enjoy the splendor Southeast Asia has to offer.  I likely won’t be around the internets much as I plan to stay with the  Gibbons, motorbike as far as I can go, and find a beach to bake in the sun and be warm in the middle of a Korean winter.

I’m postdating one post for you all, but if you miss it, Merry Christmas and happy holidays and know how much I love you even from the other side of this wonderful world we live on!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxooxoxoxoxoxxo

 

A (barely) beating heart

Makes my heart happy

~Jon Stewart at my lunch break.

~Kids who jump up and down and wave at me as I walk into the lunch room everyday.

~찜질방 on cold, cold Korean days.

~Korean friends who appreciate Justin Timberlake and his SNL skits.

~2^nd grade English speaking competitions about geese and exploding books.

~Shabu shabu.

~Cotton headed ninny muggins.

~Fashion glasses that make me look smart.

~Making badass music mixes.

~My last day of work in 2009.

~Four days till the beauty of ‘Nam.

~Yoga class.  All of them.  And, tea time afterwards.

~Beautiful family and friends here in Korea and back home!

Makes my heart 2 sizes too small

~Frozen toes all.day.long.

~Transient lifestyle that takes my friends away from me.

~The mixing of meats at every meal an addition to seafood entirely still intact thrown into my soups.

~My neighbor who smokes in the hallway creating a smell that drifts in my room to wake me up in the morning.

~Grumpy old Koreans who tell us to shut up.

~The cold.  Did I mention it is cold here?

~Friends who don’t keep in touch.

~ Seeing my family only once a year. Must change in 2010.

 

Post-teacher’s retreat

It sucked.  In case you were wondering.  Went off somewhere 4 hours away by bus.  Noraebanging, mekjuing, and dancing by 2pm.

Dinner of roasted pig followed by hours of more drinking, singing, and dancing only to be topped off with what my boss called a Christmas party where all the teachers sat in a circle and sang Korean carols and asked me to blow out candles on the cake.  Then we ate cake and 번데기.  What a combo.

(FYI, 번데기 = silkworm pupae= GAG!)

On and on this went until we passed out in crowded rooms with heated floors way too hot to handle.  Up early for fish soup breakfast and back on the bus for noraebang as we went to a colleagues wedding.  Didn’t actually go to the wedding. Just the reception and ate the food as we watched the bride walk down the aisle on the TV in the corner.

Korean style.

 

Pluto

My kids called me out on my education today when I tried to teach them about the planets, including Pluto.

Yeah, I know it has been downgraded from a planet to a star.

But, they insisted on only 8 planets and then asked me, “What school, Teacher?  No Harvard? No Oxford?”

 

Tiger

Doc: Lori, you know Tiger?

Lori: Tiger the animal, or Tiger the golfer?

Doc: Tiger golf.

Lori: I do.  And, boy is he in trouble!

Doc: Trouble?  No.  Just fun. He fun guy.  Have fun with women.

Lori: Ok.

Doc: So, Lori.  If Tiger proposed you what would you say?

Lori: Proposed?

Doc: Ask you to his bed.  What would you say?

 

The Green Gorilla

The other day Liz and I combined all our classes and popped in 2000 movie version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

When Kelly’s students told her what we did that day, they explained to her how they watched the movie with the green gorilla who hated Christmas.

Right now I feel like that green gorilla.  Counting down to ‘Nam…can’t come soon enough.

 

Pre-teacher’s retreat

This weekend is another of our shcool’s teachers’ retreat.  Here is what I know so far:

1) I MUST go.  I wasn’t asked if I’d like to go.  I was pretty much told I HAVE to go.

2) I also MUST prepare some sort of entertainment or act to put on for the teachers.

3) I am told I should ‘dress sexy.’

I feel like I am being pimped out.

 

Hanging with the monks

Buddha carved into the side of the mountain at Golgul Temple

I spent my weekend at Golgul Temple, tucked away down in Gyeong Ju in the southeast of Korea.  Home to one of the oldest and most historic Buddhist ruins in Korea it was a great place to go and live like a Buddhist monk for a day.

We arrived just in time for a vegetarian Korean meal where our only rule was to eat all that we took to avoid 9 years of bad luck.  After a quick change we were off to the temple’s gymnasium for some chanting, meditation, and a 90 minuted Sunmudo training session.  This ancient zen martial art is a specialty at this temple as the monks practice Sunmudo as way of uniting mind, body and spirit to reach enlightenment.

While they were enlightened, we looked like morons trying to mimic their jumps, kicks, and graceful movements all the while giggling our heads off instead of maintaining the intended state of mind.

Lights out at 10pm for a quick sleep before being by a monk walking through the hills at 4am chanting and hitting his wooden block.  It was the most peaceful way to wake up I’ve ever experienced.  In the cold, dark morning, we hiked up the hill to the temple for our 4.30am meditation and chanting session in an unheated room.  Forty-five minutes of sitting in this uninsulated temple up in the hills during the start of a Korean winter didn’t make for ideal meditation conditions.

We followed this with walking meditation and then straight to a ceremonial Buddhist breakfast where once again we were taught to appreciate the little things.  Here we ate everything that we took and then learned to clean our bowls with a piece of kimchi and some hot water that we had to eat and drink when finished.

One of the monks teaching us how to clean our bowl after we eat. He told us beforehand as the meal was to be eaten in total silence.

A traditional tea ceremony with the coolest monk I’ve ever met who answered all our questions from ‘can you marry‘ to ‘aren’t you starving?!?’ led in to some touring around the temple grounds before our last meal at lunch time.   Once we had finished and packed our bags, just about everyone was ready to head to McDonald’s and undo all we had just been taught.

Our monk and his assistant preparing for the tea ceremony.

Experiencing life as a Buddhist monk for a day didn’t take me to enlightenment, but it was enlightening.

 

Gyeong Ju (경 주)

Lots and lots of yummy Korean food.

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These hills are actually tombs for the kings and queens of the ancient Korean Shilla Dynasty.

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Fresh water at various temples around Gyeong-ju supposedly good for the stomach.

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A bell atop the hillside at one of the temples.

 

Can you spot the ajuma?