Again, I’m sitting at school, weak winter sunlight barely illuminating my chilled classroom, cultivating aestheticism again. I have two free periods on Mondays and Wednesdays until April because I won’t see my new first graders until then. It’s nice to have some time to get back into school mode at the start of each week. I’m usually exhausted and dreading teaching after a weekend out. I got home relatively early last night (a little after 8), but still…I slept in a jjimjilbang (public bath) on Saturday night and that’s never conducive to rest, what with hard floors and minimal blankets and people talking loudly at all hours. At least it’s cheap, and I did get very clean. It was actually disgusting how much dead skin I sloughed away!
This semester has definitely had a rocky start. I am slowly realizing how spoiled I’ve been with a group of teachers who are accustomed to my eccentricities. The new ones (my co-teacher included) don’t realize that I am not a regular teacher. I do not stay at school when I am not teaching. Thus, I was not informed that the students would be taking a test on Friday and therefore I would not be teaching. I sat through almost two periods, waiting for someone to show up, until I finally asked. I should have asked earlier, I suppose, but eager teacher I am, I didn’t want to remind them if they’d forgotten. I was not entirely happy—I could have had a long weekend, after all—but I suppose things worked out well enough. I saved a little money and I got to see Magoksa on Thursday. Apparently the students will be testing again tomorrow—another day off, and this time I know about it! I think I’ll go to Daedeunsan near Daejeon…I’ve been meaning to go there with a free day all year, but it just hasn’t worked out. It’ll be a long day, but I’m hardy!
I left Friday morning for Jikjisa Temple near Gimcheon. I had to take a bus to Daejeon and then transfer to a south-bound train. It’s a bit of a pain, but I don’t mind that much now that I know there’s a daily market right next to the train station, and this daily market currently features dried persimmons and strawberries—two of the most delicious things in the world, in my opinion. Too bad strawberries are so difficult to transport! I am trying to eat them whenever I can, though…I know from experience the strawberry season is tragically short! On Friday, I found roasted sweet potatoes, too, to round out my lunch. I spend entirely too much money and time at markets.
I arrived at the temple around four—just enough time to walk around and get acquainted with the area before dark. The grounds were pretty enough, but I’m sure they’re astounding in any other season. Winter does have a particular kind of stark beauty, but let’s be honest—EVERYTHING is more beautiful once the growing season begins! My favorite part was, again, the hall with the thousand Buddhas. Specifically, it was the lone standing Buddha in the middle, naked, little parts exposed. Soooo funny—I can’t believe they had that in the temple! Guess the monks there have a sense of humor! I stopped by both of the temple tea shops, too…nothing better to do! I sampled a couple kinds of green tea. The shop of last weekend was better, though…no ddeok here!
That night I stayed at a yeogwan in the village outside the temple gates. The lady who ran it was a little bit insane, I think…she was jumping around frantically, talking excitedly and unintelligibly (I think the people here had some sort of country dialect—I had trouble understanding anyone here!), and in general overwhelming me. But she did give me a very comfortable, very hot yo, a large pear, and a discount.
On Saturday morning, I set off for the heights of Hwangaksan, the 1111m mountain that looms over Jikjisa. I wasn’t too sure how long the hike would be—my book said 12km, but didn’t specify whether that was one way or round trip, which was not very helpful. That’s a big margin of error! I think it was about 12km in all, but the first 2 km were on relatively flat ground leading up to and just beyond the temple. The last 4 were a very steep climb—approximately 1000 vertical meters! No wonder I was struggling—that’s so steep! The trail was pretty icy, too, and I got to use my crampons again. It gives me such pleasure to walk in them—they make such a pleasant clonk on the ice. It’s the same pleasure I used to get from the click of high heels, though I suppose they don’t have quite the elegant appeal of heels. I allowed myself the day for the hike, but I was down by noon—in plenty of time to get myself to Gumi to meet Janaki. (She lived in Gumi last year and I’d asked her to come with me.) But I was detoured along the way by a chance meeting with a talkative guy—for once, someone my age was talking to me! His name was Ju Hyun (but apparently goes by Charles) and happened to be on the city bus I caught back to the nearby town of Gimcheon. He’d been visiting his family but was on his way back to Seoul. We chatted on the bus—his English was quite good as a result of study in the Philippines, I found—and went to a coffee shop together to wait for our trains. He was really fun—I hope we meet again!
In Gumi, I met Janaki and her old co-teacher (with whom she’d spent the day) and she dropped us off at Geumosan, the nearby mountain. Janaki had been raving about this tea shop in the little village below the mountain and I’d requested a visit. It was great! We feasted on ddeok and strawberries (I had bought the berries at the market) and sipped endless cups of ujeon (a kind of green tea). And I met one of the teachers from Janaki’s old school, who just happened to be there at the same time. I can’t believe how many English speakers are at her school—man, life would be so different if I worked with anyone who could communicate with me! I think it’s an elementary school hazard—very few people know much English. Ah, well.
We met one of Janaki’s old students for dinner. He was so awesome—a really smart, marginally nerdy guy who was really interested in politics and knew much more about the world than I did. I think he was nervous I was there at first, but we ended up having a good time, eating Japanese and then patpingsu and talking for over four hours. This was definitely a radical departure from my other weekends lately in Korea, spent in solitude!
And that night, of course, we jjimjilbanged. I’m going to have to start doing this more often—it was a great way to clean up AND get lodging!
On Sunday, we met Sunny, the nurse at Janaki’s old school, and her two children for an outing to Geumosan. I really wanted to hike the mountain, but it was quickly apparent that wouldn’t work out well—our Korean companions were not that speedy and were definitely not intent on the summit, and I didn’t really want to go off on my own. I do that all the time—what I do not do is spend time with people. So we hiked to the waterfall together. It was not too strenuous, but was definitely fun. We had a lot of snacks—in typical Korean mom fashion, Sunny had packed enough food for at least a whole day—and we also stopped at another tea house on the way back into town. This one had a lot of tea and tea paraphanelia for sale (I always love looking at this, but I resisted the temptation to buy this time) and also served juk, a kind of Korean porridge that I rarely have the opportunity to eat. It was delicious, though the kids didn’t think so—they refused to touch it!
And then I made my way across the country to start another week of school. I already feel as though I never left school, as if I’ve been teaching forever. I cannot believe it’s only my second week!