Sunday, July 28, 2013

An excellent end to the semester

This Thursday marked the final day of the first semester at my school, so all of the teachers were treated to a lunch outside of school, after which we were able to go home early for the day.  During this lunch I was talking with a couple of the other female teachers, and one of them told me that we should be friends because I'm alone and she's alone (apparently her husband is working overseas right now).  So she told me that in September when the new semester begins, she and I will have to hang out after work and do things and eat dinner together.  Sounds great to me!

Moving on to Friday...
It was an absolutely wonderful day!!!
Most of the staff from school all met at 7:30 to hop onto a bus to go to the island of Geumodo for a day of hiking.


While we were waiting on the ferry to get to the island - the other teachers were making fun of me because I wasn't wearing long sleeves, a hat or sunglasses.  But have you ever seen a Korean that's all geared up for hiking?  Let alone a whole group of them?  Let me tell you - it is very colorful, and I don't understand how they weren't dying of heat wearing jackets, hats, bandanas, etc.  But of course, they don't like the sun, so that is kind of understandable, even if I had to listen to things like, "Sun is bad for you!" and "Amanda, you're weird!" (because I like the sun...)

Once we arrived at the island, it was clear that we were going to be in for a very beautiful hike.  Parts of our hike went through a forest kind of area, while other parts were along the side of a cliff where you get some awesome views of the sea, and some of the surrounding smaller islands.

 
 
For the first leg of the hike, I ended up tagging along with the younger gym teacher, and it turned out that it was also his 30th birthday that day!  As we were walking along, I could've sworn that I had seen other teachers ahead of us, but when we got to the rest area, there wasn't anyone else there at all!!  And no one else showed up  for at least 15 more minutes!  I didn't think we were walking that fast at all though!  As we were waiting for the other teachers to show up, we had a furry little visitor come hang out with us - an adorable little dog!  After getting some attention, she left us for a bit, but it was worth it because she came back with two absolutely adorable, cute and very friendly little puppies!!  They were more than happy to play with us and get some attention in general. 
 
When all of the other teachers finally made it to where we were, we all got on the bus and went to a restaurant for lunch, which was some kind of fish stew.  At this point though my co-teacher asked  me if I still wanted to do hiking after lunch - to which I said, "of course!! This is an excellent way to spend the day!"  And her reply was that all of the teachers were tired and didn't want to hike anymore.  That's ridiculous! It wasn't even that bad of a hike - there was barely any slope at all - mostly all flat ground, although there were a few sections where we had to pick our way over a rock strewn path.  Which reminds me - I was also asked if I was enjoying the views - which were absolutely beautiful, if I didn't say so already!  But after that, the teachers told me they weren't seeing the views at all because they were so busy looking at the pathway so they wouldn't trip and fall.
 
After lunch, the bus took us back to where it picked us up and we continued on our hike. Once we started this part though, one of my co-teachers asked me why I looked so happy.  Because I get to be outside in lovely weather, we're hiking (which I love), and it's beautiful.  Do you need any more reasons than that?  And I get told again about how the other teachers don't really want to do anymore hiking.  Oh my.
 
When we finished the second part of the hike we all stopped for drinks/ice-cream, then walked for a bit more back to the bus and were taken for an early dinner.  Which was seafood.  It looked very interesting.  There were things like sea urchins, octopus, abalone, something in a spiral shell, and other kinds of fish.  And then we got some kind of thick yellow soup with rice in it.  After dinner we all piled back onto the bus, which took us back to where we had met first thing in the morning, and everyone parted ways after a lovely (in my opinion anyway) day!

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