Spirit Day and Conquering 설 악산

Last Thursday we were informed that Friday would be spirit day at CIS since the soccer team would be playing in the second round of the world cup on Saturday night. As foreigners, when we hear the term 'spirit day', we go all out. We all showed up decked out in red, covered in Korea tattoos, and full of energy. The Koreans found this quite hilarious, as apparently spirit day to them simply means wear a red shirt (in fact, none of our Korean staff even wore soccer shirts, just red shirts). In the morning Kate (teacher of my old Nemos), Marie (current Nemo teacher) and I had a special activity organized for our students since we were all studying insects this month. The kids came to each of our rooms and made different bugs from food. It was especially fun for me since I got to hang out with my kids from last year for awhile! The kids all had a good time and some of their bugs turned out rather interesting.

In the afternoon we headed down to the gym for what was basically a pep rally. I think the best part of the day occurred when I was explaining to my Bambis we were going to the gym to cheer. They asked me what cheer was, so Amy (my supervisor) started chanting "dae-han-min-gok". My kids immediately got wide-eyed and started yelling"Korean!" We finally convinced them it was okay to speak Korean at the pep rally, but just to make sure, before we went downstairs, Justin came over to me and whispered "If cheer, no smiley face off?" I love the fact that they have become so comfortable with English they are scared to speak Korean :) (In a similar story, Yuri came back to class today after getting a drink of water from the library and announced "Library, Korean Eve Teacher (the music teacher)". I told her that next time she needs to tell her "No Korean" to which Justin replied "but Eve Teacher no smiley face!" (referring, of course, to the fact that she doesn't have a spot on our chart to remove a smiley face from).

The Korean staff demonstrated two cheers (one being the dae-han-min-gok that I talked about last post and another was a Korean song). Then each class had a turn to come up and lead the rest of the classes in the song and the cheer. Most of my kids came down with a terrible case of stage fright and didn't do much on stage, but they did all get up there! Afterward they announced the winners of the 'most spirited teacher' contest, in which yours truly won third, earning me a Starbucks gift card. Unfortunately, all our spirit didn't help the Korean team as they ended up getting knocked out of the World Cup on Saturday night.

At 11:30 pm on Friday night, Jess, Maire and I headed out on our weekend hiking trip to 설 악산 (Seoraksan). It is the highest mountain in the Taebaek mountain range which is located in Eastern Korea. It is the third highest mountain in Korea, with the peak reaching 5,603 feet. While getting up to the peak you need to climb over 800 steps. Last year, Meg and I went to Seoraksan and did some strolling through the canyon area for a couple hours. However, this particular trip was dubbed 'the ultimate Seoraksan hike.' What we hiked took about 11 hours and was almost 20 km (12.5 miles) long - and we didn't even do the whole thing! The hike essentially started at one side of the mountain at an elevation of 980 meters, went to the top, and then came back down into the canyon area where Meg and I were last year.

We started off at 2:45 am (sans sleep), fully intending to do the whole hike - 14 hours total, which added dinosaur ridge to what we ended up doing. We were warned the first 2.5 hours were the hardest and they weren't joking. Even the stairs to get up the trail head were killer! We quickly discovered this wasn't hiking up a really steep dirt path...this was rock climbing up really steep piles of rocks (and as previously mentioned, climbing lots of stairs). Literally the entire trail was covered in rocks - ranging from boulder size to stepping stone size. When the sun started to raise around 5 am, we also learned that we weren't going to get good views. The entire area was a sea of fog that just got denser and denser as the day went on. Around 7 am, a mist started that turned to a pretty steady drizzle within half an hour and then continued the rest of the day. This resulted in slippery rocks, which required us to slow down or perish (at one point I slipped on a bridge and almost went careening into the river) and was eventually (along with plummeting temperatures) the main factor in our decision to forgo dinosaur ridge and do the "shorter" hike.

The weather was really upsetting, not only because it was a bummer to hike in, but because we couldn't see anything. Literally. I ended up with barely any pictures because they all looked the same - white fog. We finally made it below the fog level around 12 or so when we hit the canyon area and were able to get some pretty shots of the water down there. Along the way we meet several friendly group of Korean hikers as they passed us. One guy was very certain to show us the posts that come up every so often with an emergency number and location if you need help (I got the impression he didn't have much faith in our ability to make it). Another group shared choco-pies with us during a water break. Yet another group wanted to take a picture with us at one of the scenic spots (again, I think they were amazed we were attempting this). After the hike we head to our pension, which was located right on the beach (just one more thing I love about Korea - mountains and beaches within 30 minutes of each other). After a relaxing dinner, we called it quit on the evening since we were now running on 38 hours of no sleep.

On Sunday we had to forgo the beach (given that the weather was cold and gray again) and instead headed to a nearby lavender farm. We got to make lavender soap, tried lavender ice cream and enjoyed herb 비 빔밥 (bibimbap). It was probably the best I have ever had - it was made with lettuce instead of seaweed, had shredded chicken in it, tasted super fresh, and was decorated with a flower. From here we called it a weekend and made our way back to Seoul. Although I didn't get to do the exact hike I had hoped to, I still feel so accomplished! I never pegged myself as the type to go on an extreme hike - and enjoy it - but that is exactly what I did. Now that my leg pain has mostly subsided, I am even more excited to take on Jirisan, Korea's second tallest peak, in 2 weeks!