Hongcheon

I thought it was about time that I post pictures of where I live. I live in a town called Hongcheon, which is in the Gangwon-do region of South Korea. It is a very pretty part of the country situated east of Seoul. It takes me an hour by express bus to get into Seoul. My town is in the countryside. Mountains surround Hongcheon and there is a river that flows through the middle of town. I live in the downtown area of Hongcheon. I really like my location. I have a two floor commute to my school, it takes me 7-10 minutes to walk to the bus station, and 5 to walk to my soccer field where I practice. However, if any of my teammates see me walking while they're driving to the field they insist that I get in the car and drive me. Haha. I have dunkin donuts, paris baguette, a couple different coffee shops, puma and nike store right near me. I haven’t figured out how to use the buses here to venture outside of my little area of Hongcheon yet. I want to explore more of my town; I just may have to take a Korean or someone who knows where they are going with me.  

 Washing Machine

Kitchen

 The view out my kitchen/laundry room

My awesome fold down couch I bought! 

My sink/shower

Random gardens everywhere. My building is the tan one of the right behind the garden. 

The local pharmacy a block from my house. Little Julie's dad own's it. He speaks a bit of english and is super nice.

Food stands on the side of the street. The orange stand (which is gone now) was my favorite when I first got here. It was the hoddeok man (it's a pancake that has the sugar and nuts in the middle in it... delicious) I guess it's a seasonal thing here in Korea so he's only out during the winter :(

This is the corn dog stand that I go to. Made friends with the guy that works here right away... He bows at me every time I walk by! Haha

The river that runs through the middle of town

The outdoor area of the High School... The kids are playing badminton (huge sport here) and to the right of them is a dirt soccer field. 

Down the street. The pink decorations were up for Buddha's Birthday.

My apartment from the front... Wonderland is the second floor as you can see, my apartment is the furthest left on the fourth floor.

The view from school. This is the direction towards the river. It was a dreary day.

The start of the mountain literally across the street from my apartment doorstep... in Korea they have these workout machines everywhere! 

 The mountain/park in my backyard

Last week: Buddha's Birthday and Teacher's Day

These are some pictures of the lake/river in Chuncheon. I went there on a Sunday to go hang out. It was so nice out and felt good to be by the water again! 

 The lovely swan paddle boats...

The trail by the water

Last week here in Korea was Buddha’s Birthday and Teachers Day. For Buddha’s Birthday we got the day off on Tuesday because it was a holiday. I ended up going to Chuncheon, which is the capital city here in Gangwon-do region that I live in. It takes around 25-30 minutes to get there but by bus it takes 40 minutes because they make a stop in two other towns along the way. I went to Chuncheon with one of my Korean co-teachers Jessica teacher. Jessica is very nice and fun to talk to. We went to eat right away at Vips, which is a chain restaurant here in Korea that’s all you can eat! Obviously I loved it… We stayed there for two hours mowing down on food. The place is a spendy so we had to get our money’s worth! They had all different salads, fruit, chicken wings, fries, spaghetti, different soups, vegetables, deserts and ice cream. Next time I go there I plan on spending five hours there! After we ate Jessica showed me around the town and then we ended up at Starbucks for a chai tea latte before we headed home! 

The Buddhist temple all lit up for Buddha's birthday that I can see out my window.

I ran into my friend Bre Whalen while walking around in Chuncheon! Haha (She's wonder woman at six flags in Chicago)

Starbucks! 

On Thursday our field trip to the forrest was cancelled in the morning due to rain. The afternoon it cleared up so Sharon, Elizabeth and I took our classes to our mountain to walk around.

Taking the kids to the mountain in our front yard!

Elizabeth with the little ones. She's the other teacher from the US, she's from LA. 

Teacher’s day was on Sunday so the kids brought gifts in for us on Friday.  I got a few different gifts including some lotion (which has whitening so I will not be using it), a few flower pens, and a t-shirt from my director’s son Joseph!

All of my Teacher's Day presents

newspaper translation

I talked to my co-teachers yesterday and had them tell me what the newspaper said. This is what I got:

The whole article leading up to my section is talking about the team; how they've been together for 5 years now and haven't won anything before. The team has been in a depression and are now very happy to have me help them on the team. Then once after my picture it says that I make our team go to the next level. I work at Wonderland and I've been playing soccer since I was 8 years old (I've actually been playing since I was 5). They then quoted me saying that, I want to make good memories with my "sisters".

In Korea, you call your older friends sisters as a sign of respect. I also never spoke to the paper, they just made that quote up. Anyways, that's what I was told the article said!


korean newspaper article

Wonderland

So far school has been good. The kids are so cute. I teach Korean ages 5 (western age 4, some are 3) – age 13 (western age 12). When Koreans are born they are 1 years old. It’s completely bizarre to me. I’ve learned that if you actually want to know how old someone is you ask what year they were born in. In the mornings when I teach I have the kindergarten classes until lunchtime. They are a lot of fun but as you know kids can be a pain at times. For the most part they all listen pretty well and pay attention. In the afternoons we have the elementary classes. I really enjoy the elementary classes, especially the most advance class. They kids in the most advance class can speak English well and it is fun to talk to them. In all of our classes we have workbooks/lesson plans set out for us. I do not have to do a lot of lesson planning at all which is really nice. For lunch we eat in our classrooms.  We have a cook for our school that makes lunch and snack everyday. I eat with the 6 years old class and Sharon teacher. I really like Sharon. She lived in New Zealand for 2 or 3 years and taught at an elementary school there. She loves learning about the culture in America compared to the culture in Korea and New Zealand. Sharon speaks English the best by far. Sharon has a baby that’s about 4 months old or so. He’s so cute! Amy is my director. She doesn’t speak English nearly as well as Sharon does so I always go to Sharon to get answers with questions I have. Amy has two sons. One’s the same age as Sharon’s baby and the other one, Joseph, is in the 6 years old class. There are two other Korean teachers at Wonderland, Sally and Jessica. They are both very nice. I’ve hung out with Jessica more than Sally but they are both super nice. They are going to take me to an all you can eat buffet place in Chuncheon on Tuesday for our day off. It’s a holiday on Tuesday, Buddha’s Birthday, so we get it off! I love the random Korean holidays. There is also one other foreign teacher at my school, Elizabeth. She is from the Philippines but she grew up in LA. She’s super nice. When I first got here she included me in everything and showed me how to get around. She’s been here since August so she’ll be leaving in the end of summer to go back home. My favorite days, besides holidays, are the field trip days. We go on a field trip at least two times a month. This month we were supposed to go to a strawberry farm but it ended up being cancelled because it was raining that day. I was so bummed. We ended up going to a Cinderella play instead which is interesting and in Korean. Haha. Our next field trip is going to Seoul to have a picnic with the kindergarteners. I’m super excited to go. We also go to the mountain for a field trip every month. Last month they made the kindergarteners hike up this mountain that was at least a mile long. I could not believe it. Sharon had a hard time doing it herself and they expected these little 3 year olds to climb the mountain. It was crazy. Right now my work schedule is good. I get tired from being with the kids all day but overall I enjoy it a lot! 

 Cinderella play, and yes the stepsister farthest to the right is a man...

 Korean Cinderella

 The boys in the 6 years old class. Joseph (Amy's son) Connor, Dylan, and Scott (my favorite)

 The girls in the 6 years old class. Julie, Ella, and Lucy

 Scott's a little monkey!

 It was Dylan's birthday, he wore a birthday boy pin! So cute!

Amy, me, Sharon

 The 7 years old class on Easter. From the back: Jason, Kyle, Maya, Ellen. Solomon and Jenny in front. Kyle and Maya are my favorite in that class! 

newspaper!

Hey Friends,

Check out the local newspaper... I have no clue what it says but it's pretty crazy that I'm in the news here! Yesterday after my walk home from the bus station some random guy said "Julie! Hi" Haha. I had no idea who he was. My thoughts were either he plays soccer and he knows me from that or the newspaper came out.

http://www.hcinews.com/ArticleSearchView.asp?intNum=8069&ASection=001001

More to come soon,
Julie

MVP

I joined the only women’s soccer team here in Hongcheon. I have been practicing with them now for 2 weeks. It’s really fun to play again on a regular basis. The team seems to be really excited that I’m playing with them. After the first practice with them they took me out for chicken wings and beer. It was great, Haha. The team is pretty awesome; we even have a coach. No one on the team speaks English so it’s hard to communicate but I’ve gotten good at charades and using the English/Korean translation app on my phone. I’ve been slowly teaching them words in English and they try to teach me words in Korean but I forget them all the time. Most of the team is older. I am definitely the youngest one. The oldest person is 44 years old; coach is 35. This weekend we had a tournament in Cheorwon-do. I had no idea going into the weekend that it was a tournament. I just knew we had a game and didn’t know what else to expect. We had two games on Saturday and two on Sunday. We left Hongcheon (where I live) at 6am on Saturday morning. At the tournament there were 4 different girls teams I believe. Our first game, I scored our only goal in regulation and then again in a shootout. We lost in the shootout, which is always a bummer. For lunch we went to a restaurant and had rice and green vegetables with roasted tofu (at least that’s what they got for me). It was really good. Most of the team ate a spicy dish. Koreans love their spice! 

 Lunch!

Our second game I scored 2 goals and had one assist. The second game was so easy, by the end both teams were practically walking up and down the field. I was trying to set up goals for all of my teammates the second half. We ended up winning the game 3-0. In between and after all our games we went to different fields to watch the Hongcheon men’s teams play. There were two different Hongcheon men’s teams at the tournament; one was an older team (60 years old) and one was a middle age-younger team (30-40 years old). Our coach played in one of the games on Sunday. It was fun to watch him play. When we were driving back to the place where we slept, coach got us lost. It was pretty dark out and this place was in a pretty remote spot. We had to drive up and down this extremely hilly off the road path. One of the hills was too steep that we actually all had to climb out of the car and push the van up the hill. Haha. It was very entertaining; the team kept telling me “rollercoaster”. Dinner that night was in a dinning hall setting and it was a buffet. The place we were at was like a little village for people to stay the night in. When you walked into our room there was a tiny kitchenette in a big living room with a TV. There was one bathroom with a shower and then a sleeping room that slept 4. Koreans typically sleep on the floor and that’s what we did. There were blankets to set on the floor (which provided no padding I might add) and then a comforter. I slept in the small room and 4 other girls slept in the living room. There were 11 girls total on the trip so we had two different “hotel” rooms to sleep in. Before bed the girls ordered chicken wings and beer. I don’t know if they really like chicken wings or if they think I really do so that’s what they order all the time. Either way sounds good to me! By the time we got to bed it was close to midnight. 

The place we stayed at, the teal building to the right is the dining hall

Sunday morning we had to get up at 6am… I was so tired all weekend. Whenever I had a chance I went to the van to try to take a nap if someone else was going. Our first game Sunday was at 9am. I believe I scored the only 2 goals that game. Coach had me at forward for all the games and I’m pretty sure told the team to pass to me whenever they got the ball. I don’t speak Korean so I don’t know exactly what he was saying but that’s what it seemed like. We played with 10 players on the field for our games on Saturday (short one player and no subs). I think it was about 30 minute halves. Sunday one more player showed up but she only played for the first game and then had to leave. So the championship game we were down one player which sucked. The weather was pretty good for most of our games except the final championship game. It turned extremely overcast, the sun had gone away and it started to rain. I was freezing. The game was hard, the team we played was super physical and the weather was terrible. They had one girl marking me the whole time, number 13. She was so mean and not too pretty I might add. When we shook hands at the end she crushed my hand… I don’t think she liked me. Woops. The game went into overtime with no score so we had to settle on a shootout. During overtime, I stole the ball away from a player and she kicked my right foot extremely hard. It still hurts right now (3 days later). The ref didn’t call any foul and I was so frustrated I couldn’t yell back to the ref. Our team ended up winning in the shootout! Everyone was so happy. I don’t think Hongchoen has seen a championship trophy in a while. The men’s Hongcheon team played after our game and lost, they still came home with a second place trophy though! During the award ceremony right after, they named me MVP of the tournament (I think of all the womens players but I’m not sure). And no Keith, that was no mistake. Throughout the tournament there were a ton of strangers coming up to me saying “Julie the best” and “Julie number 1” holding up one finger. It was pretty crazy. 

The view of the stadium field

The view of the stadium from outside

The team after our game!

"Fighting" is our team saying

I just got my Trophy

The weather was terrible. It was down pouring, lightning and thunder storming but the boys still played through it. The rules here in Korea are a lot different from the states.

Coach got the "best coach" award 

My MVP Trophy

My new cleats I bought here - I fit into Juniors... So crazy! 

When we got home the president of the club had all the teams who played out for Korean BBQ. It was kind of like a banquet type dinner. He got up and spoke and showed each of the teams trophies and then they had me up to make a speech. There was one man who could barely speak English translate it for me. I said a few words then they had me drink out of the trophy. Haha. It was quite amusing. They love me in Hongcheon. Everyone kept asking when I was leaving and kept telling me to stay forever. The room was set up so there were 4 people at one table. I sat in the corner of the room and different people kept coming to my table wanting to drink and chat with me. Don’t worry Keith, even in Korea I’m advertising for Hopkins. They all know that I play for Hopkins Club in Minnesota. The next night the team took me out again for dinner. The team is awesome. They all are very friendly and are always making sure I am having a good time and are feeling ok. They really like to making fun of me and a lot of them are super animated. They try to text me now in english which is super funny to read. Meekang, our goalie, really wants to learn English and tries to talk to me all the time through our trusty cell phones. She’s taking me out to dinner on Wednesday. Apparently I have an interview on Wednesday for the Hongcheon newspaper. Yoma (our captain) has a 16 year old daughter who speaks English fairly well so she’s going to come and translate for me. Once I find the article I will try to post it for everyone to see!

Julie