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Last weekend, Megan and I took off to get out of Seoul and venture into the heart of South Korea. We had a lot of fun exploring an area near Busan, called Gyeongju. We were really happy to get outside of Seoul for once and our five-hour train ride allowed us to see a lot of the South Korean countryside. Gyeongju was awesome in that it wasn’t littered with officetels and highrises.

The long weekend we were enjoying was in fact Buddha’s birthday! The city is still an important center for Korean Buddhism. We visited the famous Bulguksa Temple and the Seokguram Grotto. The temple was a Buddhist training center and housed militia during Japanese invasion. The coolest thing was to see the grotto, which houses a beautiful stone Buddha. It is a very important trip for Korean Buddhists and an amazing sight. Gyeongju was the capitol of the ancient Silla kingdom and has many archeological treasures and burial sites of the Silla kings about the city.

It also seemed to be Korean spring break while we visited. There were tons of couples celebrating the long weekend just like us. (We also found out that a way of showing affection for your significant other is to wear matching shirts. Don’t worry, we made sure to snap lots of pics.) You can see the pictures in our album! Hope to hear from you!

We discovered this video a few weeks ago on the internets. It was a huge hit in the office at work! We don't know these guys, or really even know much about where Geumchon is. But we thought we'd give these guys some cyber props and let you enjoy their hip-hop tribute to expatriate life in South Korea.

Of course, the video goes over a lot more smoothly if you've experienced the intricacies of living in South Korea as a waygook (foreigner/haole). With that in mind, I've provided translation of the hip-hoppery.

Written by Christian Zonts. The EV Boyz are Christian Zonts, Mike Nance, and Brian Peterson. Lyrics jacked from Lofbomm.com. If one were so inclined, one could Digg this!

This song has gotten frequent spins and laughs in our Welton School teacher's lounge. We really appreciate these guys' wit and skill at writing catchy tunes.

One thing about living in South Korea, you have to get used to eating a lot of kimchi. I love kimchi! Kimchi, kimchi, kimchi! Kimchi is a traditional dish of fermented cabbage, covered with powdered chili pepper, and served with nearly every meal. Except pizza. With pizza, they eat bread and butter pickles.

I never had a desire to try kimchi before. My sister, Deverie, often had kimchi in the fridge at home but I never considered it. When I came to South Korea about five months ago, I officially tried it with some galbi and loved it.

Megan and I eat kimchi everyday at the Welton School and we love it. The best thing about kimchi is that it goes with everything. I can have my kimchi mixed with tuna fish or just put some on top of rice and mix it up with other sides. I can throw some thick chunks of kimchi cabbage on the galbi hot plate to cook it, or, I can eat it cold. There are also many different kinds of kimchi, including some made with scallions or cucumbers.

Needless to say, I am hooked on kimchi for life. But to get the full experience, Megan, her mom, and I spent an hour or so touring the Traditional Kimchi Museum in Coex Mall. We learned a lot of interesting things!:

1. Kimchi is traditionally made by bundling the components (heads of cabbage, other vegetables and chili powder) in a jar and burying it in the ground to keep a steady temperature for fermentation. In a traditional village you can see hay structures made to keep the ground dry.

2. The chili powder that is so prevalent in kimchi (and shows up in many more Korean dishes) was actually introduced to Korean culture after the time of Columbus. Traders first brought chili peppers over from Mexico.

3. Kimchi contains vitamin A and C, and minerals calcium, phosphorus and iron. Kimchi has very few calories and lots of dietary fibers, making it good for diets while facilitating metabolism. Kimchi has abundant antioxidants, anti-carcinogens and is very good for your body. Particularly your digestive system. I thought that eating so much spicy Korean food would have a disastrous effect on flatulence. Quite the opposite.

4. Kimchi has a very strong smell. Many officetels, (including our first one) come equipped with a kimchi refrigerator so that the rest of your food does not smell like kimchi.

5. When taking photographs, South Koreans often use the word "kimchi" the same way English speakers would say the word "cheese".

After gaining some awesome knowledge of kimchi, we had a small, private tasting and left our mark in the Guestbook. (Something lurking readers are always encouraged to do.)See our incredibly interesting pictures of lacquered kimchi in more detail in our photo galleries!

On Friday we had our second field trip with our students. The field trip was a spring picnic and celebration for Children’s Day. May 5th is Children’s Day in Korea. This is a day to celebrate your children. I was told this is the day on which Korean children get lots of presents rather than on Christmas. As a gift from Welton School our students all received Super Soaker-esque water guns on the day of the field trip. We saw the guns arrive at school and figured they would be sent home with the children but not played with at school. We were wrong. We packed a water gun and poncho in each student’s backpack and loaded the buses.

As we arrived at a beautiful (never thought I would use this word to describe something in Korea) park with a large lake in the middle, all the teachers quickly took notice of a bungee jumping platform high above the lake. We did attempt to go bungee jumping at the end of our picnic but it was closed for lunch. We have already planned to go back next weekend so stay tuned for that tale. The park was already swarming with school children, soon to be extremely jealous school children, when we arrived. We unloaded the buses and quickly found some shade. As soon as we found our spot, all the kids opened their backpacks and  whipped out individual plastic mats, juice boxes, sushi rolls, cookies, chips, and on and on. These kids are serious picnicing pros. They chowed down their goodies and were anxiously awaiting the much anticipated water fight.

We put a raincoat on every student and made the unfortunate mistake of thinking we wouldn’t need one ourselves. The kids looked like little Ghostbusters with their water gun backpacks and protective coats. Everyone lined up to fill up their waterpacks. Once full, the mayhem began. Teachers were the first to be soaked. Of course we were given water guns a third the size of the students, so we were constantly running to reload. I have never seen these kids have so much fun. The poor children from the other schools suddenly didn’t think jump roping or hula hooping was very fun. They all stared at our students and wanted to join in the fun. Luckily our students wanted them to join in too, kind of. Several of our students were seen spraying unarmed onlookers. My little Kevin even took it upon himself to share the fun with all the bikers in the park. He stood on the biking trail, spraying anyone that rode past.

The water fight lasted for quite sometime. We were all drenched by the end of the day. The unplanned English lesson of the day was getting the kids to say “Say hello to my little friend” before firing the water gun. We found it hilarious, but I’m not sure how the director felt when we lined the students up for a group photo and we had several little Al Pacinos posing for a photo op.

The field trip was a great end to the week and probably the most fun we have had with our students.

Enjoy the photo album from our second field trip.