Deokjeok do

Deokjeok do was just the mini-break i needed after a long month of August intensives and a whirlwind September.  The "red holiday," Chuseok, was the reason for our break, which is very much like Thanksgiving, where Koreans give thanks and pay homage to their ancestors.  For us teachers, it meant traveling to a nice little island off the west coast of the peninsula to enjoy a virtually deserted beach, devoid of all regular travelers, who were in their home towns spending time with family.  A few convenient stores and restaurants were open, and obviously our minbak, which we had completely to ourselves.  They provided us with "yo" sleeping (floor mats), and a small kitchenette.  The island also has pensions, which are like little cabins (some more elaborate than others).  You can buy charcoal or little gas tanks to grill, and there's a lot of good hiking that most people didn't get to enjoy due to the typhoon right before we arrived.  Oh, and there's not a single ATM on the entire island.  This meant I spent about $30.00 the entire weekend, as I missed this extremely important memo. Good way to save, right?  I'll have to thank Amber for most of my beer. (You're the best!) 

On the ferry

Arriving to the island

After an hour long train ride, a short 10 minute cab ride, and a salty, but very fun hour-long ferry, we arrived and took another (insane) bus-ride to our beach on the other side of the island.  It was a sleepy little beach town from my experience, but I'm sure it's less relaxing during peak times through the year.  There are stray dogs that roam the island--mostly friendly--and really welcoming year-round residents who were happy to sell us fireworks and allow us to clean out their stocks of beer and snacks.  

View from our room

This is a pagota at the top of one of the trails.  Unfortunately, we didn't quite make it up there.  The beach held my attention quite nicely for the full three days. 

Pomegranites

Little Korean bum bums playing in their undies.  Very cute.

 This picture deserves an explanation:  although it doesn't appear very interesting, this was meant to be a long-exposure of us spelling out D-E-O-K-J-E-O-K-D-O with sparklers.  Interestingly enough, "sparklers" also translates to "bottle rockets" in Korean, which were all aimed directly at me while they were being lit.  So much for that.

So instead, we shot roman candles at this street sign.  No one seemed to be bothered in the least, and they sold us some more shortly after.

A big full moon behind the clouds that we enjoyed from our bonfire in 

the yard of the minbak.

The beach was completely empty this morning for over 2 hours, so I took the opportunity to fulfill my complete obsession with the sand:  

Off shore, there are all these neat little rock-formations/islands sticking high up out of the water that reminded me of something you'd see in Thailand.

Crab art: Untitled No. 1, water and sand.

Sorry friend.

Most of these pictures were taken early in the morning, so although it doesn't look it, the weather was great--warm, windy days, warm water, and cool, comfortable nights.  We even enjoyed a little night swimming.  From the pictures, you can see how far out the tide went--I felt like I walked for 20 minutes to get there.  Considering the minbak only had one fan for the five of us, the cool nights made for comfortable sleeping weather.  It was a great vacation, and I was nearly sick about it when we had to pack and leave.  

Met some really great people that I hope to keep in touch with, AND found my travel buddy for Christmas--hopefully to Vietnam :)  VIVA DEOKJEOK.

Childrens and Childrens

Rose Class.  They're growing like little weeds and losing their teeth all the time... we've had some fun stuff go on, so I thought I'd post new pics.  Enjoy! They're pretty stinkin cute.

Class Activities

 paper mache piggy banks

Ricky

 Harry with our garden

 Picking and.....eating. Ew.

 Dosan Park

 Building an ant bridge

Stuff we found: Juliet

Stuff we found: Eugene

 Stuff we found: Alex

100th day of school

Tony

 Parachute day

 Alex letting out a legitimate girl-scream

Multiculturalism show and tell

 Sonia 

Hanbok Day

This was adorable.  All the kids wore their traditional hanbok to school and we had a little half-day party for Chuseok Holiday (like American Thanksgiving).  They were a riot in their little get ups.

John

 Julia

The little 4-5 year olds came to visit from Hippo Class

 John making songpyeon

Julia making songpyeon

 Everybody

Back: Thomas, Brian, Tony, Aidan, Rian

Front: John, Ricky

 Sonia, Julia, Eugene, Ellie

 Playing traditional games: Korean hopscotch

 More games: armwrestling

Learning how to spin tops: paengi chigi

Throwing an "arrow" in a garbage can: tuho

 ...aaaand more games: kick the pom pom, a.k.a. jegichagi

Ssirum:  This is a traditional type of wrestling where the two people hold each other's pant legs, and then (as far as I can tell) simply pull until one person falls on the ground.  Sonia is a brute, and Brian is quite scrappy, so this ended in a stale mate, but it was still hilarious to watch.

 Julia and I

Playtime

John and his "eye-telescope"

 Tony

Eugene

 Eugene

Weird/Awesome

Lia

Sonia

 Gifts from John: a skull and a bell

 John, Lia, and I make a drawing.

 Lia and John make a drawing of the deep sea creatures we learned about, no help from me.

 My super elites, begging

"God", played by Thomas