Summer Vacation!

I have had an amazing week. We get one week off for summer, and I have definately made the most of it. I spent five days traveling around Korea, most of which were spent on Jeju, which is a volcanic island south of the mainland. The last three days I spent with my mom and aunt Viv here. I'm not very good at giving short overviews of things, so I will save pictures and details from my travels for later blogs, and just tell you about Mom and Viv's visit today.

I met mom and Viv at the airport on Thursday. I was coming back into Seoul at about the same time as they were. We went back near my place and checked into the hotel. Then I brought them to a local outdoor market. It is a place that most tourists don't go, and I think that they enjoyed it. They saw lots of things that they didn't even know what they were, and saw the "down and dirty" side of Korea.

On Friday we got to Explore some places around Seoul. The first thing we went to was North Seoul Tower. The tower is like a little space needle type building that is on top of a small mountain in the middle of the city. It was extremely hot and humid, and getting there was quite an achievement, but it was worth it. There were some guys doing some changing of the guards type thing that we got to see. At the base of the tower, all the fences are covered with little locks that people put on. I have no idea why it started, but there have to be millions of locks that have been added over the years.

Our next stop was Gyeongbok Palace, which is just like every other palace in Seoul, and I guess just like all the ones that Mom and Viv saw in China. There are mostly just a lot of buildings that all look like eachother, and are furnished about the same too. One of the buildings was kind of in the middle of a pond, so that was kind of cool. Again, it was really hot, so the break that we took to have slushies was really refreshing, and allowed us to keep our energy up. After the palace, we went to Insadong to do some souvenier shopping. By the end of the day, we were pretty beat, and ready to rest at home.

On Saturday we spent most of the day touring the DMZ (DeMilitarization Zone) on the boarder of North and South Korea. We went on the same tour that I blogged about before. We started at the Joint Security Area, which is supposed to be controlled by both sides, but now is divided down the middle, with each side patrolling thier own part. On the South Korean side, 95% of the soldiers are ROK (Republic of Korea) military, and 5% US military. The JSA is the best part of the tour. It was kind of a hazy day, so we couldn't see too far into North Korea, but we could see a little. We also got to see a tunnel that North Korea dug to try to suprise attack Seoul, and the commuter train station right on the boarder that will be the Northermost station on the railroad line once the two Koreas reunite.

After the DMZ, we saw a live show in Seoul called Nanta. It was a non-verbal show that was based around master chefs preparing for a wedding. It was mostly a rhythmic/music type of show using "instruments" found around the kitchen (similar to Stomp), but included comedy, martial arts, audience participation, a little magic, and a token love story. It was an amazing show that was fun start to stop. I would go see it again in a heartbeat.

We had Sunday morning to just go for a walk, and sit down and talk in a nice air conditioned mall. It was so nice to have family here, and it was hard to have them leave. I think that they were ready to go though, because they had already done a long tour of China before they came here. I still haven't really grasped the idea that I will have to be back at work again tomorrow.

Even though I haven't been teaching for the last week, I have some favorite student quotes to share from before the vacation. My students were learning about family in Social studies. They were given a writing assignment to tell about how they are the same and different from their dad. Here are some of my favorite responses:

"We both don't like poison."

"My dad sleeps with loud sounds and I don't do that."

"I am sad when my mom is ill, and my dad is sad when my mom is ill."

"What makes my dad sad is when he cannot se me and what makes me sad is when I can'ts see him"

"My dad and I are the same because when I wear pants, my dad wears pants too." (written by a girl)