My first Teacher's dinner and Jindo -the sea parting festival...

So much happened since I last wrote! We had a teachers dinner last Friday night and it was rather interesting! We went to a duck restaurant. The food was really, really good. Because I work until 4 on Tuesdays and Fridays and we only had to leave school at 5:20, I decided to go for a stroll on the beach. 

Song-Jeong Beach that is very close to my school.  There are four surfers in the water, but there are no waves!

But because of my stroll my co-teacher and I forgot the time and ended up being rather late for the dinner. We had to fill the spaces that was left as everyone was already seated, which meant that we didn't sit at the same table. I was surrounded by teachers that couldn't speak English. They were very concerned about my chopstick skills and the ladies on my left and right kept correcting me, but each of them had their own technique. Which meant that they were contradicting one another. I thought it was quite funny, especially when I started eating my seaweed soup and the 2 teachers found fault with the way I held my spoon! Like I have never eaten with a spoon in my life before… 

Getting a chopstick holding lesson...

Last week the principal came to me during a school lunch, I was busy mixing my bibimbab - a traditional Korean dish - with a spoon and got told off by him for holding my spoon wrongly! Haha... 

Bibimbab, you mix all the ingredients together before eating it. It is really yummy!

Other than that the food at the teachers dinner was delicious! We had duck which we cooked ourselves on a stove that is in the middle of the table. Then we wrapped the meat, sauce and vegetables in a leaf and ate it. It was very similar to the Korean BBQ.

Min-Jung my other co-teacher at the restaurant.

The table I was seated at.  If you look closely you will notice we are all sitting on the heated floor.

When we were done eating the soju started flowing. Soju is a traditional drink and tastes like vodka, mixed with water and mentholated spirits. It's not very nice. 

Soju

The principal, vice principal, security guard and some other teachers did the rounds with a shot glass and a soju bottle and made sure that everyone got a shot out of the same glass! Hopefully the mentholated spirit taste killed the germs! The more they drank the jollier they became! And the more the soju and beer flowed! One of the teachers described soju as “soju good, soju cheap, soju makes happy”.

A teacher doing the rounds..

The security guard doing the rounds.. He is a sweet old man and often will buy me food.  I had about 6 tots of soju in the end and a couple of tot glasses of beer. When it comes around you have to drink... Luckily, I wasn't affected by the alcohol at all.

We ended up in a nori bang and of course as expected they made me sing! I ended up singing the lemon tree song which they chose on my behalf. It was a disaster! The principal kept standing in front of the screen so I couldn't see the words. But luckily Min-Jong my co-teacher who has a beautiful voice grabbed the other mic and saved the day! After my attempt of singing, they let me go and I could go home to get some well needed rest.

Yummy fruit at the noribang! It is a rare sight, fruit is way too expensive for me to afford.. This platter was probably my highlight of the evening!

The principal singing.  I think everyone had a bit too much to drink.

Another interesting delicacy at the noribang... 

The next day I went with a group of friends to climb the mountain behind Beomeosa temple (‘beo’ means Buddhist; ‘meo’ means fish; and ‘sa’ means temple). It was a beautiful climb with spectacular views of Busan what a pity it wasn't a clear day.

The first blossoms at the temple.

Leoni and I at the top of the mountain.

All of us = South africans! From Left to right: Me, Leoni, Daniela and Tarryn in the front.  Busan is in the background.

The beautiful views of Busan from the top of the mountain.

After the long hike, I decided to go for a long overdue haircut.  I needed one desperately so I followed the advice of my friend Nathan and went to a salon he recommended. In Korea going for a haircut can be quite risky. Not a lot of people can speak English and to try and explain what style you want can be quite challenging. Luckily, it all turned out well in the end.

First time in my life that I experience a haircut with the hairdresser using two hairdryers at once!!

 On Friday it was my schools sports day, but I have never seen such organized chaos before.  First the grades were lined up and then it was the announcements, followed by the national anthem.  Then they played a Korean version of classical music and the whole school including the teachers began to stretch.  It looked more like a dance more than anything else.  I asked my co-teacher what is happening and she said they are stretching for the big marathon.  

The school lined up and getting ready for the marathon.

Here I was thinking it will be athletics like back home.  Each grade had a chance to run.  First the girls then the boys.  But as I said, it was chaos! 40 to 50 kids running at the same time doing 4 laps is quite interesting to watch. 

All the teachers were standing outside wearing their inside shoes.  We have inside shoes for wearing inside the school.  But it seems to be ok if you happen to quickly walk to the park in them as it is still on the school grounds.  I work in slippers which I bought in South Africa at Woolworths and I absolutely love them! Never realized how important a good, comfortable shoe is until I came to Korea where we have to walk everywhere.

This past weekend I went to Jindo Island to the sea parting festival. This happens only once a year for only an hour at a time. The sea parts and forms a footpath to a nearby island. It reminds me of the story of Moses and the Israelites who crossed the Red Sea.  

A picture I found on google, to show what the parting looks like.

I went with a couple of friends and we got the bus at Sasang bus terminal in Busan at 6:30 am.  But my friend that I went with got very sick while we were waiting on the platform for our train.  She vomited 6 times while on the bus.  Luckily, we met a South African couple who has been in Korea for 12 years and could speak Korean fluently. They helped us to get to a doctor inside the bus station where my friend got a drip (which she really needed) and an x-ray of her lungs to detect her stomach bug…yes, that’s right…

People in Korea, will get a drip even if they only have a blocked nose or a hangover.  They will hardly ever be admitted into hospital. It is easy to get a drip, just go to any pharmacy. I have heard some of my friends here have seen Korean people walking around with a drip and the drip stand in grocery stores, coffee shops and elsewhere.  Have a drip and be on your way. It’s bizarre really.  I am yet to encounter this, but when I do I will certainly get a picture.

One thing that I have learned during my time in Korea is that their logic doesn't make any sense.  I had to open a second bank account at a Korean bank so that I could transfer money into that account, to pay for my school lunches.  I tried to explain that I can just have a debit order on my current account.  All for nothing, as trying to reason with them doesn’t work. So I let it go and opened a second account to keep smiles on their faces.
 

Two hours after my friend got the drip we were on our way.  We arrived in Jindo, only to realize that our booked accommodation is quite far from where we needed to be. 

Low tide at Jindo beach.

We had to be at the coast at 3 am the next morning to witness the sea parting.  We walked around, asked around and eventually found a new place to stay.  It was a room with a heated floor and no furniture, except a television.  We were given a blanket and a pillow. The heated floor was switched on and we were sleeping on the hard, boiling hot floor like every other Korean.   

At 3 am we got up and got ready to go down to the sea where the event started.  The tide-related sea level variations result in a local phenomenon (a "Moses Miracle") when a land pass 2.9 km long and 10–40 meters wide opens for an hour between the main Jindo island and the small Modo island to the south of Jindo. It had long been celebrated in a local festival called "Jindo's Sea Way", but was largely unknown to the world until 1975, when the French ambassador Pierre Randi described the phenomenon in a French newspaper. Nowadays, nearly half a million foreign and local tourists attend the event annually. It is accompanied by local festivals which include Ganggangsuwollae (Korean traditional circle dance), Ssitkim-gut (a shaman ritual, consoling the souls of the dead), Deul Norae (traditional farmers songs), Manga (burial ceremony songs), Jindo dog show, Buknori (drum performance) and fireworks.

Hundreds of people were queuing with torches ready to enter the ocean.

Loads of Koreans were standing with their buckets collecting seaweed for their seaweed soup and various other dishes.  I always knew that sushi had seaweed wrapped around it, (not that sushi is Korean in any way) but I never visualized that it actually came out of the sea, until I witnessed the Koreans harvesting seaweed and drying it next to the road.

Harvesting seaweed

Drying seaweed

At 5 am we started to walk. We bought gumboots that came up to our upper thighs so that the water couldn't enter. I wore a pair of jeans and believe it or not they were still dry by the time we were back on land.  The island that we walked to is 2.9km away and as we got about halfway to the island we were told to turn around as the sea was now closing again. It was really sad as I would have loved to witness this.  I have heard that the best time to experience the seaparting would have been later Sunday afternoon at 5pm when it was low tide again. But because of us working, attending that would not have been possible.  As we turned around a spectacular show of fireworks was waiting for us.  Being 1.4km in the sea on foot with a row of people holding torches and a spectacular view of fireworks, was indeed worth the trip.

The Legend:

According to an old Korean tale, at the end of the 15th century (during the Joseon Dynasty) a man named Son Dong-ji was condemned to exile on Jeju Island, located a few hours south of the mainland. However, a strong storm shipwrecked Son during his journey through the Yellow Sea down Korea’s west coast, ensuring that he never made it to his final destination. He instead found himself washed ashore in the village of Hoedong (literally “tiger place”) on modern-day Jindo, so-named for the abundance of the ferocious striped beasts that allegedly once roamed the area.

There, Son and his descendants eked out a difficult living amongst the other villagers over the next 200 years. During this time, many fell prey to attacks by the big orange-and-black cats and were brutally killed. Finally, a decision was made for everyone to flee by raft to nearby Modo, where they would be able to live in peace. Unfortunately, an elderly woman named Grandma Bbong was accidentally left behind. She prayed every day to the Dragon King of the Sea, Yongwang, to deliver her safely to her family.

One night in early March the Dragon King appeared to her in a dream, and told her that the next day a rainbow would appear in the ocean to guide her across. She went to the shore the next afternoon and prayed to Yongwang once more. At that moment, the waters parted and a crescent-shaped path linking the two islands appeared. Grandma Bbong dashed across the opening but soon fell victim to exhaustion and the stress of her ordeal. Her family ran out to meet her and she died there in their arms, her final words spoken in praise of the Dragon King for helping to reunite her with her family one last time.

Standing at the statue of the forgotten lady and a tiger.

Jindo is an island in the south-west side of Korea.  It is so different to Busan and indeed very beautiful. A medium-sized hunting dog breed called the Korean Jindo Dog originates from the island. It is known in Korea for its fierce loyalty, attachment to home and hunting abilities. Since 1936, the dog is considered as a national cultural legacy and has been protected during the war times. This is also the only dog breed that Koreans don’t eat. 

A Jindo dog

According to a legend which my co-teacher told me about the Jindo dog saved the life of it’s owner when the owner drank too much and passed out.  While being passed out a fire broke out and the dog who has water in it’s hair (yes my co-teacher used those words) rolled in the fire and killed the fire.  The owner survived, but the dog sadly didn’t make it.  Jindo dogs are very faithful and kind she said. 

The rocks that we had stood on were completely covered when the tide came out. High tide at Jindo Beach.

We decided to get the express bus back home as we thought it would be faster than getting a transfer in a town an hour away.  But in Korea ‘express’ means the opposite from what it means in the west.  Our bus stopped every 20minutes in every little town and the 5 hour drive became 7 hours and our journey became so much longer.  We only arrived home very late on Sunday evening.  I don’t think that I will be doing such a far journey over a weekend any time soon!

It is my school's 85th birthday today and the school is closed for the day. I am enjoying the day of rest after such an eventful weekend…