Field Trip and Maskdance Festival.

So, just back from an amazing weekend in Andong. I HAD to blog right away so I wouldn't forget anything, or not get around to doing it.

Lets start off with my Tuesday night... this is where my story begins. I finish work on Tuesdays at 4:30, so I went home and did some house work, relaxed, then went to my friend Heather's house. Heather and I went to high school together, and she is one of the most amazing women I have ever met, and I always feel so energized after I hang out with her. Well... I get to her place around 8pm and we make supper (soooo yummy by the way, Kimchi, Tofu, Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Pizza and Mandu... a FEAST!) Then we decide to fix my couchsurfing page that I never got around to updating... everyone knows how computer savy I am (NOT!) and the site confused me. Well, she is a pro and got it going! :) Then we put on a movie, the same escapes me now... but I loved it. It was about a cop in South Africa who robs banks during the apartheid. It was great!

Well, after being at her house I felt really good about life, being in Korea, and had good conversations too... Heather is really good for that! The rest of my work week flew because on Thursday we had a field trip... and it was a short day.. then Friday.. well Friday is Friday!

Now, let me tell you about my field trip and how amazing it is! We went to this farm and dug for sweet potatoes and picked peanuts that were already dug for us. The kids had so much fun. Each of them wanted to dig the biggest potato, but didn't know how to use a shovel.. haha I did most of the digging, and when we found bugs and worms in the ground they all squealed as I head it up and taunted them with them... I know.. I am so mature... haha but they secretly loved it.. haha I am sure. I had also never seen how peanuts grew before, so that was really interesting to see.
The kids laughed at me when I tried to say Korean things, and they tried to get me to say things and laughed when I said them very wrong. At lunch, just like any Field trip they all wanted me to try their lunches and what their parents made for them. They love when I try Korean food with them. I have actually started to eat lunch with them everyday... I like it because I can see the children really trying to use their English, I get to eat free Korean yummy food everyday, and the kids make me laugh. On the way home from the trip all the kids wanted to sit next to me and play games... so we played the ABC game.... but I changed it because they are getting too good at it... all the ABC game is, is each student says one letter until we get to end, if one says it wrong, we start all over again and the student who said it wrong is out until the next round. Well... this time they had to say the letter, but also a word that started with that letter. They are getting REALLY good at it.. and I think it is helping with their phonics.

Speaking of Phonics my class has always been pretty below the other classes with their English, but slowly they have been getting much better. They were recently tested along with the other classes, and did much better than everyone else suspected! :) I was proud!

Anywho... remembering back to Tuesday where I updated my couchsurfing account with Heather, I received an e-mail from the guy who organizes the Busan group here welcoming me to the group, we pass a few e-mails back and forth and he ends up telling me about this event on the weekend. (I get this e-mail on Friday night at work... the event is the next morning...) The event is for the Maskdance festival in Andong... Andgong is about 2 hours away from where I live, and also in the e-mail he tells me that we will be staying in a Traditional Korean Village. Of course I jump in on that adventure and get my friend Allison on board as well!

So, Friday is a goodbye party for my friends April and Michael. There is no way I missing that because my introduction to Korea has largely rested with them, and I wouldn't have felt so welcome without them. I met a lot of really fun people, and done and seen some great things because of them. This is how I started going to the Socrates meetings. They got me to join. Well... I went 20 min on the subway to their party to only stay for about an hour... but I am so happy I went. They will be missed.
The next day I wake up at 6am after getting home at 12:30am because I have to be across town for 7:30 to catch the 8am train... I have to meet people from couchsurfing who I have never met, but extremely excited. Allison I met up eagerly, go to the bank and then end up missing out transfer stop on the subway and it results in us being late for the bus, and missing it. Thank god for cell phone reception in Korea, because otherwise I wouldn't have found Pablo (my host!) We get to the festival late, can't find Pablo, because I am terrible with directions, but decide we want to look at a lot of these things on our own... (p.s: the bus ticket was only 15 dollars!) We have so much fun... we see masks from all over the world, eat an amazing lunch (chicken still on the bones, glass noodles, some veggies, and this spicy sauce all cooked in the same bowl... Apparently a very Andong dish), we paint a mask, watch kids on the stage practice their takewondoe (so cute!) and watch some cultural dances... around 5:45 we think it is probably a good time to call Pablo again so we can find out about where we are sleeping... I know I leave everything to last minute!
Once we call him he tells us we have to run to catch the 6pm bus since it is the last one to the village. We met a guy named Eric during one of the dances, he was couchsurfing himself in Korea aside from that group we came with and helps us find the bus... we didn't want to miss that since we had no idea where the village was we were sleeping at! haha We get on the bus, and realize... wow... we have no idea what these people look like who we are meeting. I get a phone call from Pablo asking where we are, and he happens to be sitting right across from me on the bus! haha Great turn of events!
The bus ends up taking 40 minutes to get to this village, but it was neat to look out at the window and really see Korea outside the city. I saw houses that looked more like shacks and rice fields EVERYWHERE!
We get to the Village and head straight to the house we have rented (we rented a house and two rooms from another since we came with about 22 people!) People actually live in this village, and they rent out their homes for people to come stay in... this home in particular cooked us supper! We had the same thing for dinner as we did for lunch... but that was perfect because it was soooo good! After dinner I really had to use the washroom, and it turned out to be a Korean style looking toilet (on the floor), but this one was an outhouse... (now.. some may not want to read this... so skip to the next paragraph... )but I would much rather use the outhouses at campgrounds I have used when camping growing up, or even the ones when camping with girl guides... this one was smelly... and mastering a Koren style toilet... haha difficult when you are a girl! Especially clumsy! Well, to make this experience worse... it was that time... yes ladies, that time. Imagine, an outhouse. A standing style outhouse. A smelly standing style outhouse. A dirty smelly standing style outhouse. A dirty smelly standing style outhouse with no toilet paper... A tampon. Enough said.

Once that experience was over we get ready to go to the river for fireworks, but before I go I bump into the couchsurfer I met in Toronto who introduced me to Korean food in Little Korea in Toronto! What a small world! So anyways... I went to the river, the river at night here was BEAUTIFUL! We could see stars!!!!!!!! I haven't seen stars in a long time. There were mountains everywhere, and you just felt like you were really in nature... the smells were beautiful... I really missed the smell of real fresh air. The mountain had some lights on it so you could see it, but it also had wires from one end of the mountain to the beach. From the wires they had attached slow burning fireworks... I don't really know how to explain slow burning fireworks other than they look like a very long burning sparkler... well these were pointed down towards the sand, and it seriously looked like it was raining fireworks. It was beautiful. There were hundreds of them tied to 5 or 6 wires. I had some friends take photos, but they really don't show you how it really looks.

After this experience of sitting on the beach and just watching this we head back to the rented house. It is only just before 9, but I am super tired. We thank everyone for a wonderful dinner and Pablo show us to where we are sleeping... we were sleeping in this little tiny room that you had to slide the doors open and duck in. I am 5 feet tall and I had to duck! Anyways.. we were provided with one blanket and one pillow each! :) And thankfully our floor was heated (that is house homes are heated in Korea). It was cold in the mountains and I wore a hoody for the first time since getting to Korea! I slept in this room and could even hear the crickets... It felt so nice to be in nature. However, since we were travelling with 22 couch surfers we had three others join our sleeping space throughout the night. It felt like I should have been watching television, but I was living haha.. One guy came in throughout the night to find his wife, she had come in an hour or so before him and he was pretty drunk... and was mad at her, and kept talking as if no one was in the room.. ahah she was so embarrassed, but it was harmless... mostly hearing, "Vicky, why aren't you talking to me... where were you, I looked everywhere, it was cold, Vicky talk to me... Why are you being so mean" for almost 30min haha. Then.... the snoring started. I never thought that a human being could make those noises before! haha Thank goodness I am a very sound sleeper and could fall back asleep after a while, but man.. if anyone knows how I sleep.. not much can wake me.. snoring may be one thing, but it has to be loud... this was unreal! She apologized for him in the morning because he was still sleeping, but I told her not to worry.. :) It all comes with this type of travel, and I have loads of patience!

In the morning we woke up early, used the outhouse, this one had toilet paper... thank goodness.. then adventured around the village... it was so beautiful in daylight, they even had a little information room in which we were told all about Queen Elizabeth's visit! Interesting eh?

We went back to the festival, made some more crafts, RAN to the bus, almost missed it again, and now I am home ready to start another work week! :)

Miss you all, and will post pictures from this amazing weekend as soon as I can. I have no Internet right now... my stealing wireless signal days are over and I am going to have to pay like the rest of the world...I am hoping to have the Internet by Tuesday... that might be wishful thinking!