Cheongju's Jikji Festival

Several weekends ago (we've only been here a little over a month, it's easy to forget that!) we attended a big local festival in Cheongju called the Jikji Festival that promotes local culture and highlights the existence of the oldest printing press and its origins in Cheongju. This is a big event that lasts for 3 days with music, food, wares, and activities for the kids. 

We were fortunate to get to attend the festival and a play with the kids from school on Friday and then we went ourselves on Saturday afternoon to see the rest. 

This was one crazy ride on the way to the play. Not cool bus driver dude, not cool. Yes, that is a small tv on the dash.

It was playtime at the playground before we went to see the play!

Julia hopped on the top of the slide.

One of those rare instances that I can catch John smiling when I have a camera nearby.

Sarah the adventurer. I love her cute striped stockings.

Waiting surprisingly patiently for the play to start.

This was one of the more interesting things I've seen in Korea. You don't really tend to see handicapped or otherwise developmentally different people around here in this country. This was a group of adults with developmental disorders/delays who came to watch the play which was really interesting. 

The play was interesting and odd at the same time. There were some moral lessons about sharing, etc,  some magic and time travel, some history (all of this is based on my powers of intuition and a comment by the Korean teacher about what was going on), and some otherwise interesting things.

Everyone watching the play for the festival.

Afterward the kids got to make cookies! It was fun watching them trying to make their cookies. They were pretty tasty. 

Aren't they so cute? Off in the back left is Pooh, by the way.

Starting from the front, Stella, Kate, Carley, and Evelyn make their cookies.

Next we moved on to a craft activity where you could make your own "book". Zach and Hana are helping kids make their books here. 

Evelyn and Michael work on their books.

Sarah proudly shows off her tiny book!

This is a local temple (I've heard something about it being a cult??) that we saw on the way  back to the festival on Saturday.

Detail of the temple carvings and painting.

I love the huge carvings outside of the temple, they're just so neat.

I think these fine creatures are the mascots of Cheongju, more info once I figure out how to read and understand Korean.

Welcome to Choengju!

This is the interior of the home of this bell which is gorgeous.

This is the view of the bridge leading toward the Cheongju Early Printing Museum and the temple where temple where the printing took place is.

Information about the bell in Cheongju.

This is the outside of the bell's home. It's really a pretty sight. 

I'm not sure, but I think this is a theater type building ahead while the tents were just there for the festival.

The bridge was decorated for the festival, it was so pretty.

The view down the street from the bridge.

The bridge from below. 

This is Cheongju's Early Printing Museum, it was really interesting (some of it was in English at least  ^.^).

We talked to two nice Swiss gentlemen who were showing onlookers how printing is/was done. They were very nice and explained to us what their background was and why they were in the area. I think they were grateful to hear some other English speakers even if English isn't their first language. They gave us a pewter stamp (in Korean) that had just been made and we were able to bring it home with us. 

These are copies of some of the Swiss men's books that they print and sell. It was very interesting.

Fire! They were showing off a part of the printing process.

I see what you did there Choengju Early Printing Museum. Knowledge, eh?

Views from inside the museum.

This museum had holograms!

Models of the monks working on the printing process.

It's hard to tell here, but these are miniatures. 

Live music at the festival.

These characters were at the Canon booth(??).

We got tired of walking after a while so we sat and people watched.

I thought this was pretty neat, it's a hammer pulling out a nail. The butterfly is kind of fun.

We saw these cute little dogs in a shop on the strip on the way to and from the  festival, they're so cute.

This was one of my little souvenirs from the festival. They tasted like waffles almost, but were filled with a bean paste and walnut pieces. They were delicious.

This is a copy of the paper they printed during the festival, a postcard of the Swiss gentlemen, an info sheet and pamphlet for the museum, and the pewter stamp that they gave us.

A close up of the stamp, we still aren't sure what it means.

All in all, we had a really good time at the festival and I'm really glad we took the time to go after we had already visited on Friday with our school. We finished up the evening by taking the bus to Shinae (downtown) and grabbing dinner from Rice Story and coming home to relax for a while. 

Adult classes vs children classes

This short update is on my views as the differences and pluses and minuses about teaching adults and teaching kids.  I admittedly only taught adults for a bit over two weeks so my experience is largely biased since I didn't have a full year/a full time gig doing it.  I guess I should give a bit of a background on my adult teaching in general.

About a week into our little Korean adventure our director pulled us aside and basically said one of us (she said she would prefer Amanda) to go and teach adult classes at this school called BCM English Institute.  The director there really likes foreign women, but since Amanda wasn't comfortable with our surroundings yet I was "volunteered" to do the teaching.  I was very annoyed with this since it would mean getting rid of all of my prep time and taking on an entirely new class which I had no prep for.  Luckily this seems to have scared the director into realizing I am not going to take any bull from her when it comes to a million extra hours.  My first night teaching adults was a bit awkward, I didn't actually have anything planned out and kind of stood in the front of the class looking dumb.  Little by little however I began to get comfortable, and by the end of the week I was pretty confident.  The classroom atmosphere with adults is just so much nicer than with kids.  Most of them are University students or business professionals who really just want a place to relax and talk after super stressful days at work or school.

I taught adult conversational classes so there wasn't any writing or testing involved in the process.  I simply would go in, think up a topic, write a few questions and try to keep the class talking until the 50 minute mark hit.  The topics I did ranged from relationships, sports, love, apartments, jobs, to even sex now and again.  It was nice to have such a laid back environment where there isn't any real pressure.  The only real downside of the adult classes is that 3 days a week I would be getting off work at 9:50 and not make it back to our apartment until around 10:30, only to have to go to bed an hour or two later.

God I have such a tiny head

Teaching children is difficult, at least teaching my kids is.  You can tell they understand a bit of the language, but as the weird foreign teacher they really don't want to listen to you.  The worst two days of the week are Monday and Tuesday because you literally can not get them to pay attention to anything.  I end up losing a lot of my voice those days just due to the sheer amount of times I need to yell at my kids to get them to listen, although I am getting better with getting their attention other ways.  I just think a lot of this job will be dreading those two days, then by Wednesday the kids are a little more relaxed and I am just slowly waiting for the weekend myself.  Since the kindergartners are still so young I don't have to worry about homework with them either, but it is just really frustrating to teach.  The good part about the kids is that I can play with them, for example the boys like to get into fights and its fun fake punching them and hearing them yell out in "pain."  Its also nice because I can give them a worksheet and let them do their own thing for about 30 minutes while I relax and let them draw to their hearts content.  It is rewarding teaching both, but I think if I had to come back to Korea again I'd probably go the teaching adults route full time, even if the split shift is a real killer.

I will miss them!

Apartment life in Cheongju

I forgot that we hadn't given you all the grand tour of the apartment! This is the current "spare bedroom" in the apartment, it's down the hall as you  enter from the lower levels.  This is also where we hang our clothes to dry since we lack in the dryer department. That's a Hello Kitty cover on the A/C and a hula hoop on the bed. You can also see part of a small chandelier above the bed, don't ask me.

First things first, this is our kitchen. The doorway on the right is how we get up and downstairs, etc. To the left, behind the refrigerator is another door that leads to our boss's rooms and a small bathroom. We did have two tables here before one of them was kidnapped and taken downstairs. It had our school prep stuff on it too. :(  To the right is the gas hot plate and the sink, etc. 

This is our room! We have our bed, computers, a small dresser, a cabinet, a desk, and a huge tv we don't/can't use. 

Since our tv is not used, it's turned into a shelf. I spy Lu Bu, a yogurt bank, an Archibald (the duck on the bank for those of you unfamiliar with our cats and Benny's love of the cute little things), a change basket, and a few other things. 

Just in case you need to make an emergency escape. 

The mosquito repellent thing is that blue egg shaped object while that is our snazzy power strip. 

This power strip looks surprised.

Our cabinet for miscellaneous things, including food. Also, alarm clock. 

This is closet number one. Clothes and various other things reside here. 

Closet number two has coats and shoes. 

We're rich! No, we just have some spare change lying around. 

I like walking around barefoot as much as the next person, but these floors remind me of college dorms. I prefer to not walk around and have icky feet if I can help it. 

This is part of our bathroom. No showers here, you take a shower in the whole bathroom. 

The rest of the bathroom. You can see the drain in the floor and we use the green squeegee to get rid of all the excess water on the floor so it's not super wet when you step inside. That or you wear some sort of shoes, or both. 

The view from our room looking out into the hallway. The green on the left is the closet and the other green thing is our laundry basket. 

The whiteboard in the room. It has schedules for each day, some drawings, some websites, and some music ideas for our older elementary girls. Oh, and a rainbow squid colored by Stella in the right corner.