The next day we went back to the Mandarin Cafe for our motorbike hire to one of the Royal Tombs.  The Tomb that we went to was the Tomb of Tu Duc a bit of the ways out of town and it was an enjoyable ride overall. Once we got there, the guys driving the motorbike waited for us and we went on our way. It was really beautiful and I enjoyed looking at the architecture and whatnot but really can’t go in-depth about everything I saw there. Probably because it’s ages ago. Well, the pictures are on Facebook..we took about a thousand or so!

We stayed at the tombs for a bit and walked around leisurely and then we head off to the  Thien Mu Pagoda. The pagoda is 21 meters high and was constructed under the reign of Emperor Thieu Tri.  We took  a few pictures there and headed off to our last destination at the Citadel. Unfortunately, once we arrived at The Citadel, Hye Kyeong burnt her leg on the muffler of the motorbike. The driver scrambled to put some oil on her leg and apologized for what happened. At first, I thought the burn was minor but it put Hye Kyeong out of commission for the rest of the day.

So we both headed into the Citadel but she had to sit down as her burnt leg was bothering her and she wanted to rest. I told her that I would look around for a bit and take some pictures. I walked into the Imperial Enclosure, which was the residence for the emperor and the main buildings of state, and took some more pictures. Overall, it was very interesting but doesn’t make for an interesting blog as I can’t remember the details without flipping through Lonely Planet. After a little while, I headed back to where I left Hye Kyeong. Only once I got there she ran off. I panicked, as I always do and ran around looking for her. Eventually, I found her and we headed out of the Citadel to find something to eat.

We picked a restaurant that acclaimed was advertised in Lonely Planet.  The owner of the restaurant was really kind and he is known for the unique way he opens bottles. He is also deaf but that didn’t stop him in the least. I remember the food was good but that’s about it.  At that point, we both headed back to our hotel and checked out. We got our bags and waited at the Mandarin Cafe until it was time to take our train to Hanoi.

All I can remember from the Cafe is that we ate dinner and talked to the owner some more. After an hour or two, we got our bags and walked to the train station. At the train station, I talked to some disgruntled foreigners who were complaining about their treatment from the Vietnamese. Honestly, in my time in Vietnam, I have very little complaints about the people.  I was really expecting to be ripped off but I think I was being ripped off a lot more in China than in Vietnam. Overall, we met a lot of really, kind genuine people with whom made me feel a kind of affection for the people of Vietnam. You would think that the Vietnamese would be extremely disgruntled towards Americans and foreigners in general but that wasn’t the case at all. I never saw any outright prejudice towards me or my wife.  I would say that Koreans act more negatively towards foreigners than Vietnamese do…which I find to be extremely bizarre. Still, it varies from case to case.  Some people love it and others hate it.  Luckily, I have never traveled to a place that I hated.

We booked our train tickets back in Hoi An for our journey from Hue to Hanoi. It was fortunate for us that we did, since we were able to get a soft sleeper for the both of us.  Soft sleepers have four beds in each cabin, hard sleepers have six or so and there are also soft and hard seats.  We also had air conditioning in our cabin which made the trip much more pleasant.  I have to say, that traveling by train is always better than the bus alternative. Sleeper buses while cheaper and easier to book, can be especially painful.  During our honeymoon, we took a 14 hour bus ride from Yangshuo to Shenzhen in China. We  were convinced by the travel agent that it would be comfortable and not necessary for us to book the train. Well, they were very wrong about. The bus ride was miserable for a guy of my stature (6’3″ or 191 cm) and people were sleeping on both sides of me in the aisles and also I had smoke blowing in my face the whole time.  It’s not an experience that I will cherish..even though it adds character.. Anyways, back to the train ride in ‘Nam.  The train ride was mostly pleasant and I was even able to sleep for a little bit.  There were two others in the cabin with us and they shared some fruit with us.  Unfortunately, they were also eating some kind of food that smelled rancid. You win some and you lose some.

After 13 hours or so, we arrived in Hanoi…

Tu Duc Royal Tombs

Me eating a local specialty in Hue.

Thien Mu Pagoda

Flag pole at The Citadel.

Inside the Imperial Enclosure.

So for those who don’t know, Jirisan National Park is the oldest national park in South Korea, established around 1966 or so. Anyways, it contains Cheongwabong, which is the second largest peak in S. Korea standing at 1915 meter or 6,283 feet.  It is also the largest national park in Korea and the place with those most extensive hiking. You get the idea, it’s a monster of a park and if you’re serious about hiking, it’s the place to be.

I have been planning on going here for ages now, ever since when I lived in Buyeo, but we (my wife and I) never had the time or the opportunity to go. Once we moved to Haman, I made it a top priority.  Unfortunately, I got sidetracked over and over again and it fell of the list of priorities.  That was until my friend, Edward, told me he wanted to go, so we planned the date. Of course, finding the right weekend is hard for the both of us as we are both incredibly busy people but we finally settled on the weekend of November 7th.  Sadly, the week that we decided to leave Hye Kyeong’s sister came down for her teacher’s exam, so it wasn’t possible for Hye Kyeong to come.  We decided that this was the last opportunity of the year to go, as Edward is leaving at the end of the month and Hye Kyeong and I are heading to America next month and moving.

The trip can be split up into three days.

Friday, November 6th -

This day was just a traveling day. We took the train from Haman at 7:50 PM to Jinju. Nothing of any interest happened on the train and I can’t really remember much of it, other than something about zombie dreams and Joe Pesci saying “Whatever” in Lethal Weapon 4.  Edward also talked about his love for silent movies and Buster Keaton.  He won me over.  He also criticized me as I am a fan of Supernatural.  I cried. Rightfully so, since it probably is an embarrassing guilty pleasure.

We arrived there an hour later. Jinju overwhelmed us. Well, not really as I’ve been there a ton of times already..but being that I live in Haman, it’s nice seeing civilization on the weekends.  We took a taxi from the train station to bus station and from there we walked along the river to look for our hotel. We settled on the Dream Hotel.  The Dream Motel is a love motel and if you don’t know what that is, in sexually conservative Korea, the dating couples let out their pent up frustrations in these rooms.  Anyways, it was a bit of a sight for them to see two foreign white guys standing there want a room. Fortunately, they didn’t discriminate and let us share a room. The hotel was also special because it had pictures of naked women on the walls. Good stuff.

We made it up to our rooms and then Edward and I shared an awkward moment as the maid (who said we were “handsome boys”) tried to give us blankets while we were standing in the area of shoe removal, and trying to take our shoes off with my massive sleeping bag making things very difficult for the three of us. After that awkward moment, we decided that it was impossible to sleep at such an early time and head off to see the sights of Jinju.

With a beer in head and some snacks, we contemplated our hike and talked about things of the highest importance. Things that I have forgotten. After that drink, We bought some food, such as beef jerky, tangerines, cereal bars and other kinds of snacks for the long hike ahead.  I also went to a PC  Bang, the first one we to was for naughty purposes but I finally got the job done (Not that kind of job!). We then headed off to bed as we needed to wake up very early in the morning for the epic hike.

Saturday, November 7th -

We woke up at 5:30 that morning and I experienced the last bit of hot water for nearly 40 hours. At 6:30 AM we took our bus to Daewonsa. We arrived at the park lot at 8:30 AM and made our way to the trail head. Along the way, we stopped to take pictures of Daewonsa, which is a Buddhist temple on the eastern entrance of Jirisan National Park. The area around it was particularly beautiful as the leaves were changing and there was a stream. We were the only people there and that was common for a good portion of the hike. After that, we hiked another 30 minutes to Yupeong Village. The village has lodgings, restaurants and the necessities for the long hike ahead. After buying some ramyeon, which we never had the opportunity to cook, we were on our way.

We started on the trail at 8:30 AM on our way to the first major stop of the day, Chibanmok Shelter or about 1,000 meters above where we were standing. The trail started off quickly in an upward slant.  At first there weren’t that many rocks and it just felt like we were going up and up.  At that point, it felt rather standard over than the fact that we had to traverse 6.2 kilometers to get to the shelter. After a while though, that started to change and things got steeper and steeper and we had the opportunity of experiencing the wonderful rocks of Korea. As  the trail pretty much went up the whole time with only periodically going downhill, I had to take a number of breaks. As usual, the beginning of a hike is often brutal and this was no exception to the rule.

Eventually or about 3.5 hours later we reached Chibanmok Shelter. There we bought some ramyeon from the store at the shelter and feasted. It was there also that some guy noticed that Edward was wearing the Vitro brand as his hiking gear. Well, this man was extremely flattered as he worked there and treated Edward very reverently. He did that for a good while and offered him a persimmion. He was the first interesting person we encountered on this trip, at least for me, but it certainly wasn’t our last.

We ate and relaxed for nearly forty-five minutes, as I was exhausted from the ascent. After refilling my water bottle at the shelter, we were on our way. The distance between Chibanmok Shelter and Cheongwangbong is 4.2 km. The path in between those two points is full of ups and downs and quite steep but not overwhelmingly so. There were three peaks on our way to Cheongwangbong and we took a few pictures at each one. At the final peak (Jungbong 1875 meters) before the summit, we were able to see the people on the top next to the flag. Unfortunately, it looked like a wall and we had to go downhill a good ways before going up.

At this point, I think it’s a good opportunity to explain how going downhill freaks me out. Ever since I was little, I was scared of heights not because of the thought of climbing up but getting down. I have always been fearful of ladders and when I see that I have to climb down large rocks and boulders, I get nervous. Others, just skip down but every step I take is measured on places that I find to be steep. I get better at this when I hike more frequently and I am more confident. Unfortunately, the last hike before Jirisan was something like Muhaksan in Masan back in April or May so I fell back into some of my previous bad habits.

Well, back to the story…we made our way to the summit after going downhill and then worked our way uphill. Fortunately, the path went around what looked to bet the extremely steep parts and while it was steep, it was manageable. After maybe 30 minutes from the last peak, I was standing on the top of Cheongwangbong. We were lucky, as the view that day was pretty clear. The blustery winds and the storm clouds were an ominous sign of what was coming. We stayed up there for a few minutes to take pictures and made our way down a bit lower to eat some snacks.

After eating Diget cookies and tangerines, we made our way down the west face of the summit. We hiked down for around .05 kilometers when I saw the sign for Jeonteomaek Shelter. I was freaking out because I didn’t see the fork for our shelter to Rotari. That was because of the way that I approached Cheongwangbong. The fork to our shelter was on the south face and not the west face.  Earlier in the week, I booked Rotari Shelter for both Edward and I and found that Jeonteomaek Shelter was full and not available. I called Hye Kyeong and asked her to call Jeonteomaek Shelter and ask if we could stay there. I waited for a bit and called her back. She told me that they were overbooked and that we needed to go to Rotari Shelter. At that point, it was already starting to get dark (4:45 PM) and there was no way we could go the .5 kilometers back to the top and then down to Rotari with it still being daylight.

Very fortunate for us though, we saw a park ranger heading down from the summit. In my limited Korea, I asked him if it was possible to stay at Jeonteomaek Shelter. He said it was possible and would find a space for us! We were both very relieved and we followed him to the shelter as quickly as possible.  Along the way, we stopped at a pile of rocks which has some significance in Buddhism. All three of us, put a stone on the pile and bowed to it. After that, the ranger offered us some coffee, tangerines and a muffin. We ate together and then headed down.

On our way down, I think the ranger though I was extremely tired because of my bag. He took my bag and swung it over his shoulder. I was still able to carry it but since I was straggling behind a bit, due to my cautious nature, I guess he thought I was on the point of falling over. It was a kind gesture though and it taught me that when somebody does something nice for you, you can pay them back by doing something nice to another person in return. I will make sure to do so if I see the opportunity.

Anyways, we made it down to the shelter with very little daylight left. That was because of the delays and perhaps overly long breaks. We waited in front of the shelter and then the ranger took us to the front desk, where we were assigned our two spaces for sleeping. The shelter was really only a platform on the second floor with no padding. Luckily, it is possible to rent blankets for 1000 won each and I brought my sleeping bag which solved that problem.

We were planning on just eating some snacks and perhaps having some can tuna but the ranger invited us to have dinner with him and a friend of his. We made our way to the field kitchen, where we saw large groups of Korean hikers camping with their gas stoves. Now I thought, my bag was too heavy but these hikers had everything in their bags and packs that looked to be impossibly heavy to carry. I like to hike light and Koreans do the complete opposite. They bring everything imaginable and plan for every contingency.  Edward was pretty much the absolute opposite of the Korean hiker. He brought a small backpack and wore training shoes. I was somewhere in the middle with a larger backpack and hiking shoes (which don’t fit!)

We had a lovely dinner with the park ranger and his friend. They made us some egg on their gas stove and we had some can tuna and spam. Normally, this would be rather lackluster but as I was starving, it was a feast. We talked with a number of the other hikers there in English and some Korean. Lot of really cool folks overall and it helped improve my overall mood  living here. The star of this trip though was the park ranger who really helped us in a bind and to him, I am very grateful.

After our “feast”, we headed back to our sleeping area. There wasn’t much to do but sleep so we fell asleep at 8:00 AM. Thankfully, I bought some ear plugs as the snoring in the area where we slept was epic. Hearing a group of over 50+ snoring men snoring simultaneously is something to behold.

Sunday, November 8th -

I woke a few times throughout the night for bathroom breaks and I also felt like I really needed to wash my hands since they were filthy from the climb. Unfortunately, for me the only running water was 150 meters down a steep rocky path, so no water for me.

We got our stuff ready at around 7:00 AM and had a breakfast of crackers (very fulfilling!) and made our way down. The weather over night though took a major turn the worse. The day before, we were lucky as the weather was great and unseasonably warm. It felt like early October and there was no ice or anything, which is common on Jirisan this time of the year. When I awoke, the mountain where our shelter was, was covered in fog and it rained overnight.

We made our way from Jeonteomaek Shelter (1635 m elevation) to Jungsan-ri village at the bottom. On the way, we stopped for water which took us probably 20 minutes or so as it came out in a trickle and there was a long queue. We made it back to the trail and hiked for a bit longer, where we encountered another place to get water with no queue and better flow. D’oh. Anyways, we knew at that point we needed to get down fast and so Edward shot off ahead and I made my way down.

About maybe 45 minutes into the hike, it started to rain rather heavily. I started to freak a bit because I was worried that the rocks would be very slick and would cause me to fall. Fortunately, my shoes had good traction and prevented any slippage. Unfortunately, though my shoes are too big for me and my feet were sliding up and down the shoe the whole weekend which caused some major blisters on my big toes. The rain soaked my socks and that caused even more slippage and made my feet even more sensitive to blisters.  As a result of this, going down was a long, painful process. The most painful part of the hike for me. The total distance between the shelter and Jungsan-ri is 5.2 kilometers and it took me 3.5 hours with sporadic breaks in between to eat, drink and to put on rain gear. It can be done a hell of a lot quicker though, as Edward did it in little over 2.5 hours.

When I finally made it to the bottom, I saw Edward waiting for me. I laid my hiking sticks on the ground for the next hiker and we triumphantly headed down to the line of restaurants at Jungsan-ri. We ordered Sanchae Bibimbap and some beer. It was amazing. It was the only real meal I had the whole weekend and I could have ate even more. From the restaurant, we walked down to the bus stop and took the bus from Jungsan-ri to Jinju. Once in Jinju, we took a bus from there to Haman.

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend. I had a blast and definitely want to go back. That being said, I need to be more prepared in the shoe department but I know better now and I will make sure I ask an expert about hiking shoes and get the right socks. It was extremely strenuous at times but very rewarding and the best physical outdoor experience I’ve had in Korea. I highly recommend hiking there as it is the best place to go in Korea for hiking. The beauty is awe inspiring and it will take you back to a time where Korea was truly “The Land of the Morning Calm”.

P.S.  Props need to be given to Edward, a truly excellent hiking partner with whom I shared lots of laughs and stories with this past year in Haman. Have fun in Central America.

We decided to skip Nha Trang, another popular beach destination,  we figured it would be overflowing with tourists and those who cater to them and that we would constantly be surrounded by locals trying to push us into taking tours.  Mui Ne is all the beach we needed.  I wanted to spend the majority of our time seeing landmarks instead of just relaxing on the beach. When we arrived in Hoi An, we made our way from the bus stop to our guesthouse that was built in the mid-19th century.  It’s an old-style wooden house that it is half-museum and half of it for sleeping.  It has a great location, right next to the Market and in the middle of the Old Quarter. We spent the rest of the day walking around Hoi An and seeing the sights like the Japanese Covered Bridge, Assembly Halls, temples and a number of old houses and museums.  Hoi An is definitely a charming town and has a more relaxing pace than a major city. Also, Hoi An has some of the best food in Vietnam, with cao lau which are flat noodles with bean sprouts, greens and pork slices and bahn xeo (crispy pancakes with herbs and rolled in rice paper and the delicious white rose (shrimp in rice paper and steamed). That night, we sat along one of the roads and ate outside at a group of restaurants. Each restaurant had a line of tables.  We were served Bia or beer at around 5000 dong, which is like 30 cents a glass! Cheapest beer I’ve had and it was quite good too.

The next day we hired a taxi out to the ruins of My Son for dawn. We got there before the park opened and we were the first people there. We waited a bit for them to open the entrance and made our way in.  It was absolutely goregous. The ruins on the lush jungle backdrop were out of this world.  The Champa ruins reminded me of my experience in Belize and Guatemala with Tikal and Lammanai.  Obviously, they are quite diffirent as the Champa have an Indian influence with statues of Hindu gods. Hye Kyeong and I spent the next few hours there wandering around the ruins and made our way back to Hoi An.

Once back in Hoi An, we book a flight from Hanoi to Saigon since we were eventually heading in that direction and we needed to make sure we made the flight to Hong Kong and onward to Busan.  We spent the remainder of our time shopping for souvenirs (found a wonderful place where everything is locally made) and bought a few purses and scarves.  After that, we dined on the best food Hoi An has to offer and even had some really good desserts thanks to the French colonial occupation.  Hoi An is a must see if you are planning on visiting Vietnam for its food and just overall natural charm and beauty.

We spent two days in Hoi An and the next stop on our tour through Vietnam was Hue.  We took the open tour bus for the last time and it took us about 5 hours to get there.  The ride from Hoi An to Hue was particularly beautiful as we went through the muntains and a high road pass which divides Vietnam. North of the pass is sub-tropical and south of it is tropical.  We also passed through Danang, which looked quite interesting. 

Anyways,  Hue is the former imperial capital of Vietnam. It is where the Nguyen Dynasty was situated. Because of that, there is a ton of stuff to see and do there. The first day there, we just walked around through the old city looking for restaurants that serve the local specialities. We walked for what seemed like forever to make it some street and that sells Banh Khoai, which is a “pancake” filled with bean sprouts, shrimp and pork.  From there,  we walked into the old city which is surrounded by a large wall.  We ate at a restaurant that served some local specialities.  I had frog legs and Hye Kyeong had a kind of seafood soup.

The next day, we asked our hotel to book us a tour to the DMZ in Vietnam, as I wanted to see a few of sites where major military engagements took place. Unfortunately,  there is very little to see as all the forts, planes and tanks were disassembled for parts, so there was little to see of the American presence in Vietnam.

We woke up early in the morning for the tour to the DMZ.  We rode our bus a few hours north of town, where we had a “free lunch”. After that, we headed north a bit and took a road towards Laos.  At one point, we stopped over to look at a mountain which is called the Rockpile. It was a Marine outpost to send messages to Khe Sanh Combat Base.  After that, we stopped at a bridge which was part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and then went to Khe Sanh. As I said before, there wasn’t a whole lot to see but it was still interesting to see where the major battles in Vietnam took place. It was also interesting to experience another perspective, as the American perspective on the war is often seen from the protests for peace in the 60s, John Lennon and the sexual revolution to movies like Green Beret and Forrest Gump.  For the Vienamese, it was a war for independence and the plaques under the pictures often had messages which were highly critical of the American involvement in the war.  We saw a bit of that before at the Presidential Palace in Saigon and we would see a lot more of that in Hanoi.  I thought it was enlightening to hear another perspective even though one that is slanted in another direction.  I find that to be one of the best things about traveling for me. As a side note, I enjoyed listening to 60s music like the Byrds, CCR and Hendrix while on the buses and looking at nature of Vietnam.

After Khe Sanh, we took another really long bus ride to the Vin Moch tunnels just north of the old DMZ in Vietnam. That was probably the best part of the tour, as it was interesting to see how three hundred people lived underground for weeks at a time with only one toilet! I know that I would have gone crazy if I had to endure something like that.  Still it is something to be admired. 

After that, we took the bus down to Hue which took nearly four hours or so. All in all, while I enjoyed certain aspects of the your including the tunnels, it was just too much bus riding. It would have definitely been better to have hired a taxi to go at our own pace or even to have skipped it all together as such a lengthy tour puts a major toll on you when you only have two weeks for vacation.

That’s all for now…Next post will talk more about Hue, our train ride and Hanoi.

When my wife and I first arrived in Haman, we were eager (mostly me) to find some local areas to hike. It didn’t take long until we made to Yeohang-san. The first time we went there we walked straight up the mountain from the little village at the bottom. Once we reached the ridge, we found a rope that led straight to the summit. The foot holds were kind of tricky and if I would have fallen off, I would have been in pretty interesting shape. Not to mention how difficult it would have been to get an ambulance in such a rural area. Thankfully, we made it to the top and came down, where we dined on duck bulgolgi.

On top of Yeohang-san.

We went back there a second time and decided to hike to a different peak Seobaeksan. At that spot, there was a major battle and a monument to the fallen soldiers. We went on from there and ended up taking a wrong turn and came down the wrong side of the mountain. We stopped at a temple called Gayasa to fill up for water and headed down into the valley. We found out that we were actually in Masan and ended up taking a bus to Jindong where we feasted on galbi marinated in bamboo. Good stuff.

Me after taking a wrong turn and coming down in the middle of nowhere.

We actually came back to that same temple a few months later but that time we were riding our bikes. We had to turn back as the way was much too steep and found ourselves pushing our bike up the mountain. Hye kyeong is still furious at me about that, as I said it was a short cut and it added a few hours to our ride…

That was the last of our winter hiking, after teaching a few winter camps and going back to school for graduation week, we headed off to Saigon. We arrived on February 15th after a night layover in Hong Kong. Overall, our time in Saigon was a blast. Loads of great food and sights to see. It was a perfect introduction to Vietnam. I’m particularly happy we chose Vietnam for our winter vacation as I have always wanted to go there.  Saigon has a number of really great museums but we mostly spent our time wandering the streets, eating at nice restaurants and went to the Presidential Palace. The neat thing about that is that it is essentially the same way as it was back in 1975 when the US Marines evacuated on the roof of the palace.

The day after walking around in Saigon and feasting, we decided that we couldn’t miss seeing the Mekong. It was the first of two tours we took in Vietnam. While, I typically hate tours as I like to see things at my own pace and at my leisure, we really didn’t plan on spending anytime in the Mekong as we had to head to Hanoi and stop along the way. Thankfully, it was one of the better tours and it was a decent opportunity to see the nature of the area and to eat some good local food, including coconut candy and some fried fish that was really good. Looking back, I would have probably done a home stay, it worked out and we were able to head to Mui Ne the next morning.

We took the open tour bus to Mui Ne. The open tour buses are something that is a bit of a mixed blessing in Vietnam. They are really cheap and they have beds. They make their money through the hotels near the bus stops and the rest stops along the way that rip off those who stop there. The open tour bus works out well with Mui Ne, as it is not on the Reunification Railroad line, so we headed there. Once we got off the bus, we headed down along the beach and found a really nice bungalow right on the ocean. It was cheap and the view was unbeatable. We spent our time there just dining and laying in chairs soaking in the sun. It was the only bit of rest we had in Vietnam, as most of the trip was seeing as much as we could fit in.  The highlight of that area though was a local taking Hye kyeong and I on a motorbike a bit north of the town to some sand dunes. Once we got there, he waited for us and we headed off to take pictures. We found a bunch of children congregated whose English was surprisingly very good. One of the boys was particularly convincing, so we hired a mat and he took us off to slide down the sand dunes on a mat. Hye kyeong, of course, didn’t want to hire her own mat and she was scorned by the children as being a “bad, cheap lady”. Definitely one of the funniest moments of the trip. After sliding down the dunes a few times, we took a picture with the boy and headed on our way. The next day we had another place to go…Hoi An.

My wife being posing and being cute at the Presidential Palace in Saigon.

Saigon

Cobra Alcohol!

Hye kyeong with the local kids.

Our Room in Mui Ne

Sand dunes outside of Mui Ne

This year, I taught at three high schools. It was certainly an adjustment from the middle school life in Buyeo and at times the difference was hard to deal with. During my first year in Korea, I had a good relationship with my co-teachers and they were mostly in the classroom. This year I was mostly on my own. At first, it was daunting doing it on my own but I began to enjoy the freedom more and more as the students got to know me. Teaching-wise I feel like I have developed in classroom management and my MA program has certainly provided me with a fresh new perspective and an approach to how I teach the students.

Breaking down my schools, my Monday school is mixed in level with some really great girl students who will probably go to the better universities in Korea and some other students who are absolute beginners. Fortunately, unlike my Tuesday school they aren’t in the same class and I teach one of those classes every week there. I have gotten to know some of the better students fairly well as I taught an interview preparation course but it has been difficult spreading myself to all the students with so little time. My co-teacher had a baby and was out for most of the beginning of the first semester, so I had a substitute co-teacher. She was interesting…and probably had a difficult time communicating with me. We had one misunderstanding and everybody at the whole school made her feel terrible. Luckily, we smoothed that out and things went better from there. Once the main co-teacher came back, everything has been uneventful and routine.

My Tuesday school has been the difficult day for me. Unlike the other schools, I have to wake up very early for my ride to school. The other two schools are within walking distance of my apartment and I am able to sleep in fairly late for those days. That’s not bad in itself, but it takes some adjustment. The students at this school are a mixed bag. I had some issues with some of the students at the beginning and I felt like I was being ignored. I quickly thought of ways to get the students motivated in the class but when that failed, I found myself getting frustrated. I remember back when my mother came over, I was constantly complaining about this very school and how the students were disrespectful and hated to learn. Thankfully, I found my niche as time went along and was able to cope more with their behavior. It hasn’t been all roses but over time, they got to know my style and have accepted me. A really great thing about this school is that I have two really outgoing male co-teachers. In my time in Korea, male co-teachers have been a mixed bag. I had a wonderful co-teacher at one of my middle schools in Buyeo, a terrible one for my first two months in Korea and another mediocre one who couldn’t manage a class to save his life. They were one of the good ones and I’m glad I got to meet them.

My main school for the remainder of three days has been great. There were initially a few growing pains with getting to know my co-workers there and I also had a different co-teacher for my first semester. Once I got to know them though, everything just fell into place. The students have been much more motivated overall than the other two schools. Some of my best students are at this school and I will miss them, especially the second grade students the most. Including, one student who gave me a cake for my birthday! He actually came up to our apartment while I was teaching and gave my wife a cake. I have complained about high school students in the past, as they are harder to get to know.  I feel like that has changed in my last few months here in Haman. They are really just a bunch of overworked bunch of kids who are scrambling to prepare for their examinations. They want to have fun but they are constantly being pushed to their limits and even punished physically (caning students in the hallways!) if they fail to tow the line. I feel happy that I have given some of the students an opportunity to use their English in a more relaxed setting as opposed to learning word lists and studying how to crack the code of English or pass a test that hardly reflects genuine communication.

It has been a good year mostly but I am definitely ready to explore a different area in Korea and teach university students.