Hooray for midterms!

So, I know I have gotten behind on the posts.  Lucky for us today we had midterms, which means that while the students were taking their tests, we got to sit in our office and relax all day, and get paid!  So I took the time to write four new posts.  Hope you enjoy them!!

Jinju lantern festival

We took a weekend trip to another city about two hours away, called Jinju.  We went to see the Lantern festival there.  Jinju is a city along a river with a large fortress from the 1500s, which was invaded by Japanese in that century.  The first time the Japanese invaded, the Koreans were able to hold them off by putting hundreds of lanterns on boats and tricking the Japanese into thinking that there was a larger Korean army than there really was.  However, a year later, the Japanese returned with thousands of more soldiers and ended up massacring thousands of Koreans and occupying the city.  So, every year Jinju has a lantern festival to remember both battles.  There are hundreds of lanterns that are modeled after all kinds of animals, famous people, and characters from movies or books.  There are lanterns depicting everyday Koreans during the 1500s, and there are lanterns of soldiers and fortresses.  It was really amazing!!!

We got to write wishes on lanterns which we later lit and had them float down the river . . .

My wish

Haha!

Us with our wishes on the river

There they go!

All kinds of lanterns, this one is a fortress you can walk through!

The building and walls on the top of the hill is the Jinju fortress

There were temporary bridges you could walk across to get closer to the lanterns

View from the fortress

Unfortunately, I don't think our wishes will come true, as they bagged them and threw them away at the end of the night!  

Even the trash cans were turned into lanterns!

Gwangju Recollection Festival

So, there are a lot of festivals in Korea. This one we came upon by accident, the Gwangju Recollection Festival.  This festival was held in our city and is supposed to be a day where they celebrate democracy and remember the activism that occurred in our city in the 70s and 80s.  We were headed downtown on a Tuesday night because that  is where our Korean class is held, but when we arrived there was a parade, and a very busy street had been blocked off for performers and lots of booths were set up with food and carnival games.  This festival went on for a couple days.

The huge stage

A very busy street downtown that was blocked off for the festival

Our friends Lizzy and Mitchell

Lots of people enjoying themselves . . .and this was a Tuesday night!

Some performers, yes, in Native American costume!

Food Vendors

A tunnel for people to write memories of activism 

Some of the side streets decorated for the festival

Mudeungsan Hike

Hi everyone, this is Carrie.  We have been busy!  Last weekend we had quite an adventure.  Our city, Gwangju, is very close to a mountain, Mudeungsan.  We have hiked on trails there before, but last weekend we had our longest and most difficult hike yet!  We decided to meet up with some other foreign teachers at 3 AM to hike to the summit of the mountain, in order to see the sunrise.  We were nervous at first for several reasons: one, the buses aren't running at that time, so we would have to call a cab and request one in Korean!  Also, previous experience told us that this wouldn't be easy, and we would be hiking in the dark.  However, we decided that it would be worth it, and we were right!  We left our apartment around 2:30 AM, (after I had taken some Nyquil and zonked out at 8 the evening before), and before we even took out our phones to call, we found a cab that just happened to be driving down our street (sweet!!!) So we headed over to the base of the mountain to meet our friends (14 other teachers came).  We had heavy clothes on, (it is getting cold here! And was even colder at the top) lots of water, and flashlights.  The hike took us about 3 hours to get to the top.  Along the way, it was so dark and the stars were gorgeous.  We stopped and rested  at several points, and at about 4 in the morning we heard the sounds of a Buddhist monk somewhere in the forest, hitting an instrument I have seen them use often, though I don't know the name.  It is wooden and hollow, and it is hit with a small wooden mallet.  The trail is near a Buddhist temple, and the sound carried across the mountain and valley.  It was so beautiful and haunting to hear in the dark of the night.  Our whole group sat in silence and listened for several minutes.  We continued on, with Bradley and myself in the rear. :) When we finally reached the top, Bradley and I were exhausted and tired, but it was SO worth it.  We got some beautiful pictures and we both felt so proud that we had made it.  It was definitely a memory I won't forget!!!

Waiting for the rest of the group to arrive; it's 3 am but we are ready!!

Some city lights far below and darkness all around

It is starting to get lighter as we reach the top

70 million year old rock formations towards the top of the mountain!

Beautiful!!!

Here comes the sun!!

It looks like an ocean below us but we are above the clouds.

Some of our group

We made it!

A bit higher in the sky . . 

Below us, the city of Gwangju, but a little hard to see through the morning haze.  The tall buildings are apartment complexes.

The rock formations in the daylight

Heading back down

Bradley's fancy color setting on the camera, highlighting only reds and yellows

What an amazing day!!!!