Even the Teachers have Field Trips

All Korean schools take their teachers on a biannual field trips. The location and duration of the trip varies from school to school. At my school it was a day trip to (강원도) Gangwondo. The students still came in until 10'o'clock for the principal's end of the year speech and for the end of the year cleaning.

It took about 2 hours to drive to Gang-Chon (강촌). Its a small town that is a popular destination for school retreats. The tour bus interior was a bit different, there are curtains hung for each row so no more blinding sunlight! There was more leg room, so that someone whose 6' would be comfortable. There was 1 large flat screen TV at the very front of the bus instead of the tiny ones that we are used to seeing on Greyhound.

Our school took up the entire restaurant. Sit down eating has taken on a new meaning in Korea because you may not always be sitting in a chair, but on the floor. Its really uncomfortable because the table was too low for me to squeeze my legs underneath it. TIP: The best place to sit is against a wall so you can at least lean against it even if your foot falls asleep. There were different main dishes amongst the tables. I sat down at a table with 옺오리 (similar to samgehtang but its duck) with the other 4th grade teachers. Basically, you take the whole duck stuff it with juk (rice porridge) and other aromatics and cook the whole thing in a large pot. The duck was ok but the juk was delish. There were a couple bottles of alcohol and the vice principal went around pouring ALL the teachers a drink. If an elder pours you a drink you must accept it. Its also courteous to pour them a drink in return. When the VP came to me he poured just enough to cover the bottom of the shot glass. (I was amused but relieved at the same time because it tasted real bad and it burned going down.) Even though I barely had a sip I still chased it with Cider (which tastes just like Sprite).


We got back on the bus to trudge on toward Gugok (구곡) waterfalls. Unfortunately, the school didn't inform the teachers where we were going, so many of them were wearing their nice work shoes instead of sneakers. The weather was cold enough that the entire waterfall was completely frozen.

The short trail to reach the waterfall was too icy so no one walked all the way up.

The mountians in PA are hills in comparison to the Gangwondo mountians here.








(^ the castle is really a hotel...)