My Summer Vacation : Busan Day Trip

Well this is officially the first day of my summer vacation. I decided to head to Busan for the day to check out the Busan Art Museum and a beach. It was only a two hour train ride from Gumi to Busan, the second largest city in South Korea. Here is the the plaza in front of Busan Station. 

The art museum in Busan wasn't that great, but there were some nice pieces. I thought this one would look good in Todd's new house. It is a coat rack and a bench!

Here is a Korean mom explaining this painting to her son.

This one is a pretty good representation of what many Korean kids have to do when they get home from school. I really like the pencil sharpener.

This is probably a fishing port in Busan.

Kyle! Sea Squirts! This is a typical scene at a Korean traditional market. When Kyle was here I asked Erik and him if they ever saw a sea squirt. They started laughing and where like "What the hell is a sea squirt!"

Another market scene.

This was my favorite painting at the museum.

Then there was just rooms of traditional paintings. They were nice, but nothing really caught my eye.

Korean calligraphy. You can compare it with the Chinese calligraphy below.

Even though you don't really know what the calligraphy says, you can still compare the different brushwork of the characters. 

A looser style.

After the museum, I did a bit of shopping downtown, and then found my way to Songdo beach. The sun was already starting to go down so it was nice a cool. Here is a guy fishing with a really big pole. It was funny because he caught a fish only about the size of your hand with that huge pole.

It was dinner time so everyone was spread out on the rocks grilling shellfih.

And drinking makali, Korean rice wine.

When I got tired of the beach, I hoped in a cab and found a jjimjilbang (public bath/sauna/hotel) on the beach. It was pretty awesome because it was right on the water so when I was sitting in the hot tub I could look out the window at the harbor. Because the spa was on the sea they had all kinds of salt hot tubs and saunas. After I had enough water I went to the fourth floor, found myself some blankets, put in my ear plugs, and tried to fall asleep in a room full of snoring Korean women. I didn't get much sleep and woke up at 4 am. It was actually relly nice because I watched the sun come up over the harbor. For breakfast I had some warm soy milk, and then I headed back to the hot tub!

Gangjin Celadon Festival

Well all the roads I end up on anyway! The first thing I did on my summer vacation was head down to the southern part of the country to the Gangjin Celadon Festival. This area was (and still is) the center of Celadon ceramics during the Goryeo Dynasty (918- 1392)

Here is a nice tea set with a celadon glaze. This type of glaze was invented in China, eventually spreading to Korea. The color can range from green to gray depending on the amount of iron oxide and the type of clay being used.

They also had other ceramic exhibits. Here are a pair of pit fire bowls.

A bowl with a flower pattern and a lighter celadon.

Here is the festival grounds. The area still has working potters even when the festival is not going on.

There were also some folk demonstrations going on. The carver invited us to try and carve the pole.

Maybe this can be my new hobby!

Even Erik got to try.

The guy really liked him and wanted his picture taken with him.

Here is a picture of a pot before it is fired. This is called sanggam, and is a famous Korean decorative technique. You can see on the right how they carve out the designs in the clay. Then they fill in the carved area with white and red clay. I don't know how they get the inlay so perfect, but it is amazing!  You can see a finished pot with a celadon glaze here.

Right before the bus came, I spotted a kiln from across the road. Even though the bus was coming soon, I had to go see it. It was hard to get a good picture because it was so big.

After a long, hot day of looking at a bunch of pottery, Erik and I found a hotel. I had to take a picture of these terrible robes in our room because they were just so ugly and we were laughing at them all night.

Summer Camp

 July 25th - 29th I taught an English summer camp for 3rd through 6th grade. I really like teaching summer camp! It was so fun. I wish I could teach like that all the time. The first day we made English names for everyone and made pinata's. Here I am going over the directions.

I split the kids into groups with one 6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd grader so that they could all help each other out. It worked really well and I could spend equal time with each group. Here the kids are beginning to make their paper bag pinata.

Ally, my co teacher came the first day to help me out. Jenny would come the last two days so, I only had to teach one day myself.

In my after school classes we learned about Native Americans all summer. I made dream catchers with them out of sticks and yarn. I tried to find crafts with stuff I had lying around because I don't have a budget for this class....only my brain!

This is the day that I taught by myself. I was trying to teach them phonics with worksheets that used Korean pronunciation. I think the kids had more fun laughing at me trying to read Hangul than they did doing the games.

On the third day of camp we taught the kids colors and did tie dying. It didn't get too messy and went a lot better then I thought it would.  Here I am showing them how to tie the shirt for a spiral pattern.

Me mixing the dye.

AHH too many shirts to keep track of! Who's is this???

Nice job!

Next day we learned about international foods and made french toast. I brought my maple syrup for everyone to try. It was a hit! But Jenny and I were so busy that I didn't get to eat any french toast =( One of the first things I told them to do is go wash your hands. Here are some girls coming back to the classroom. Most Korean bathrooms don't have paper towel so you just have to let them air dry.

Next step, crack the eggs.

Now heat the pan. Jenny was helping with this step. We had four groups to watch! Luckly some of the 6th grade girls were really good cooks so we didn't have to help their groups too much.

One of the fourth grade girls with her toast. MMmmmmm looks so good.

Who ever heard of eating french toast with chopsticks?

I think it was the maple syrup that won their approval.

Chow time!

The last day of camp we had a review quiz where the students could win some prizes.

They were really excited to get their shirts back. I think they came out pretty well. It was funny because when we were dying them we didn't know that there were different size shirts, so a bunch of the younger kids got big shirts and the older kids got shirts that were too small! haha

After we passed out the shirts we hit the pinatas. They really got a kick out of that.....an I almost got hit!

Candy pile!

Here is the group.

We made certificates and I had to hand them out and try to pronounce all the names. =P  Yay summer camp is over and time for my vacation!