After our three-or-so week Orientation, our group of approximately 180 TaLK scholars bid farewell to each other, as we are separated into our individual provinces. Some people went up towards Seoul, some went to the tropical Island of Jeju (off the eastern coast of Korea), and myself, I went to the wonderful province of Gyeongnam. Here is a truly magical place where dreams can come true, magical creatures can be seen, and you can be on TV!
So, lets start from the bus ride. It was 4 hours of wonder I tell you. Music, candy, love, games...oh who am I kidding; everyone slept the whole way. Moving on though. Heres us sleeping on the bus ride, and what the surrounding area looked like on the way down (mostly farmland).
We arrived at our 5 star hotel in the late afternoon, early evening. It was a great place; you arrive, and there is a beautiful chandelier and a large entrance hall awaiting you. We are quickly shuffled up into our rooms, told to unpack, and get ready for dinner. 10 minutes later, we meet downstairs and move on out. Here's some of the delicious food we ate:
Bugogi (to the left) is a traditional Korean dish that you essentially just mix everything together. YEAH BABY
After dinner it was party time. We went out into the streets, explored the town and the bars. Needless to say I have no recollection of the rest of the night. Just kidding. Or maybe not. Here's the only two pictures that exists from the night.
I would have to say that may be the largest violin I have ever seen. I'm sure it would resonate quite nicely though.
Moving on. I awoke early in the morning with a delicious continental (not Korean in the slightest) breakfast awaiting me downstairs. Afterwards we headed up to the roof of the hotel where classes where. Most of my classes were not that interesting and worth mentioning, so we can just skip that part. However, I will say the view from the class (the top of the building) was quite distracting, as it was quite spectacular. Here's a shot of it!
Anyway, there were a few interesting points in this Orientation. The first was our trip to some sort of museum. Frankly, I have absolutely no idea what the name of it was or what its focus was. I will say this though. There were a few interesting things that I noticed though.
Here (left and right) is what you saw at the immediate entrance. A strange structure made from wood, and an extremely colorfully designed stairs. Groovy.
Here (below), upon searching the surroundings, is perhaps the tiniest fire hydrant I have ever seen. I imagine it is for baby dogs to pee on. Or tiny firemen hehe.
The next part of my journey took me to the a the APEC headquarters in Busan, located in the second largest city in South Korea (the first being Seoul). Before doing this though, we stopped to pick up the university volunteers that would be helping us teach english in the future. These university students sign up to help TaLK Scholars like us teach english, as they are usually education majors looking to get some experience. My volunteers name was Nang Seen Ho. Here she is in all of her smiley glory:
Upon picking her up and getting to know each other a bit (she seemed pretty cool), we proceeded to the beautiful APEC building. There (now accompanied by our volunteers), world leaders gather with the intent of facilitating economic growth, cooperation, trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region. Many of the most powerful leaders in the world met here to discuss these issues. You can find out more info on this stuff here, it's pretty cool:
http://www.apec.org/apec/about_apec.html
Anyway, we toured around this place a bit, and took in the sights. It was quite beautiful, and the surrounding landscape (of the building) was truly interesting. There was ocean to the right, flowers and tropical trees to the left, and beautiful skyliners across the river. Here's a glimpse:
There was a large floored area where the countries were all labeled on the floor that were members of APEC. Thought getting a picture of some feet would be interesting. Here are mine and my co teachers, appropriately labeled of course!
Afterwards we went to the Busan Aquarium. There I was to see perhaps some of the craziest things to roam this planet that I could have fathomed. That last sentence could have come out a bit gramatically smoother, but just thinking and writing about those crazy beasts makes my head hurt. This creatures were like something out of a Shel Silverstein Poem. Truly fantastic. Here's some of the crazy animals, as well as some videos. Have fun. Not too much though, save some for later.
Those eel things on the right...yeah, those are eels that look like zebras. Freakin crazy!
Also, take note of that crazy animal that is THE SIZE OF MY VOLUNTEERS HEAD SWEET JESUS IT WAS A GOOD THING I SAVED HER LIFE BY PLAYING IT COOL AND NOT SAYING ANYTHING!
As for the videos, I personally love the little inchworm; wait until the end of the vid, he does a crazy little trick which I'm quite fond of.
Perhaps one of the most peculiar things I saw there was not a fish, but rather a statue (of sorts). I have absolutely no explination for why this guy was in the aquarium, but people were taking pictures of him. They call him the Aquarium Napoleon...
Mind you, it is a live person (the kind that stands in the streets of New York or something for money. Behind him is a tank of sharks. They didn't seem too impressed either.
Needless to say, all was going swimmingly (pun intended) until the unthinkable happened. Yeah that's right. Here's how it happened:
In order to make pleasant conversation with my volunteer, I began asking her about what we would be doing in school and why she wanted to do education. She looked at me with a blank face, unable to answer. She had no idea what I was talking about. "Working together?" she asked? "I am not going to be your volunteer..." she said.
I was dumbfounded. What? I asked her if she was sure, and she said she was positive. I went to the coordinator to ask what was the deal, and she told me that nobody knew how to contact my actual volunteer because they thought she was somewhere in Australia, so they sent me a temporary replacement.
GAH?
The pieces were coming together. I had now discovered *sniff* that my volunteer was a fake. A phony! Well, I knew something seemed off about her. Either way, the jig was up. I WAS PISSED. HERE I WAS, PARADING HER AROUND AND ADVERTISING HER AS MY VOLUNTEER, CO-TEACHER, NAY, KOREAN LIFE PARTNER AND I DISCOVER THAT SHE WAS A FRAUD!
I couldn't believe it! The whole trip was a sham. Afterwards we got on the bus, it just wasn't the same. Sure, we made idle conversation, but it no longer meant anything. She now reverted to being just like a stranger, someone from another country who couldn't speak my language. It was like we only knew each other for a day!
Wait a minute...
No time to tend to my next thought. We went back to our hotel, and parted ways never to see each other again. I hit the sack and got ready for my next cultural trip. Hopefully somewhere on the road I will meet my real volunteer. *sigh*.
Where could she be?
Well you people will find out soon enough. But for now, I'm off. The mystery will unravel soon! I'll be posting another blog real soon. Sorry for the delay!
EXTRA STUFF:
We made some clay stuff at the museum I forgot to mention about. Here's some of the stuff we made (mine is on the far left, the surfboard guy (top view).
