Not Such a Normal Week...

View from one summit.

Wednesday I went on a hike up Achasan, a mountain near my neighborhood. I went with my school. While it was nice to get out, it was quite terrifying to go on those trails with that many people. It was slick rock and loose sand the entire way with some extreme drop offs. Not a great place to be when you are in a pack of people who cannot decide if they want to be the tortoise or the hare and none of them can make that decision at the same time.

Only in Korea will you have a steep trail, filled with old people dressed in their nylon hiking gear, bright visor, two walking sticks, and a well-equipped back pack talking on their cell phones very loudly. And what is more embarrassing is that they make it up the mountain faster than me. In my defense, I stop to take pictures and to avoid getting killed by these crazy old people. At two points on the mountain, after a steep climb, there are outdoor gyms set up. So I guess, the hike is to get the heart rate going so you can do sit ups,  lift weights, and do the twist. Only in Korea. And it seems that only in Korea can I  awe the school by showing off my amazing fence climbing and razor-wire jumping skills when a group of teachers decided to off-trail it.

But the view was beautiful despite the cloud cover. We had  to take pictures for the Office of Education proving that we did go on a hike and that we weren't skirting our team-building duties. Then suddenly, the kind man who taught me how to use Korean chopsticks when I first arrived in Korea was taking my camera and taking pictures (which was nice because I never have pictures of me on my camera), but then I also had to take pictures together with him. He then helped all of us young teachers down the mountain and left the older teachers to struggle behind (but they actually beat us down the mountain).  We then waited as the "professional" hikers of the group airbrushed off their hiking boots at an air-brushing station, before heading to dinner of duck and bony pork comprised of fat and small bones. After I had spit out my eighth bone in two minutes, a  teacher thankfully mistook my answer to her question of "Do you get meat cuts like this in America?" to mean that the butcher would be sold out so fast he couldn't stay in business, rather than my literal meaning of a butcher wouldn't stay in business with cuts like this.

Almost to the top!

Thursday, I was greeted by a visit from the Home Science teacher from last year. She came to fill my co-teacher's place for a day. She has just landed a job on "Cable TV" (pronounced Kae buh luh tee wvee) (apparently that is the name of the news network), where she will be giving the stock reports.  Also, a blast from the past, I had my coffee date with another old co-teacher, where she showed me around more undiscovered parts of the city. We had a wonderful pasta dinner near Changdeokgung Palace. It was a dirty, run down cottage, but still quaint with it's bright yellow and red walls, mismatched tables and chairs, mismatched plates, and menus made from scrap books.

And today the whole busy week came crashing down into a bad mood for me. I was hit by a man on a bicycle, I had to deal with obnoxious students trying to take advantage of a substitute teacher. I got so angry that I went Hulk on a kid and the teachers could hear me down the hall. I was still fuming over terrible and unfinished homework when HyunSu brought in a kitten she had rescued from the road. He was such a darling black and white thing, covered in dirt and smelling of kimchi. Thankfully her mother said she could keep the cat, and she had just brought the cat in to show me. I held the cat and played with it while HyunSu finished a class and it was amazing how a short time with the cat made me feel much better.

Now I will prepare for five days of Matt, who has three days off of school plus the weekend!