Feeling Glad.

It is still typhoon season here in South Korea. As much as I love rain in the summer, my clothes still take forever to dry. I suppose there may be a more practical way to speed-dry a pair of pants for work, rather than frantically positioning my hair dryer every which way. Or more importantly, a more energy efficient one. Perhaps I need to time my laundry days more appropriately. Or not spill drinks down the side of my leg when I consume them. I'm worse than my students sometimes.
I've really become fond of this whole teaching thing. I usually have a lot of energy, and I love being in a classroom with kids. I wasn't sure that I would still have those

same genuine feelings after my August session, since I was given three extra classes in the morning (which tallied up my hours to 11-12 each day.) My hagwan, (the Korean word for academy) offers extra summer intensive courses in the mornings, as many hagwans do here. Because what kid need a real summer vacation, anyway?
Yesterday was my last day of intensive classes. Despite feeling a bit exhausted from it, I'm still pretty enthusiastic about being here and teaching. I suppose I may be in a smaller percentile of the people who genuinely like it, vs. the seemingly larger percentile of people who are here solely for the money, and are hanging in there each day. It's easy to get frustrated here. My friends and I joke about feeling like slave labor during our month of intensives, but there are times when it's easy to feel that way.
Despite my crazy work schedule, I was able to go on a few excursions this summer that were lots of fun, and much needed. July and August proved to be very hot and humid months, which made it less desirable to be outdoors, but more desirable to head for the beach.

In mid-July, I went to a really fun festival a few hours north west of Gwangju. The Boryeong Mud Festival is, well, just that. A festival of mud. Good mud though. It's said to contain minerals good for your skin. People come from all over Korea to cover themselves in mud, let it harden, and then rinse off in the beach. It's been going on for about ten years now on Daecheon Beach in Boryeong. It's definitely known to be a huge attraction for foreigners.

The beach and surrounding area was packed with Koreans and foreigners covered head-to-toe in mud. There was a huge mud wrestling pit, a mud slide, and lots of other activities to do. I went with a bunch of other teachers from work. We pretty much just layered on lots of mud and took silly pictures. The beach started getting really crowded as we were leaving late in the afternoon. The festival went on for the entire weekend, but we decided just to stay for the day. I'd like to go back to that beach when it's not so crowded. It was a 3 hour bus ride. I've come to enjoy bus rides more since I've been here. Could be because it's the cheapest way to travel around Korea, but also it's pretty convenient. Usually you can take a bus anywhere, and they leave every 20 minutes.

A couple weeks after the mud festival, it was our summer vacation. Which, barely felt like a vacation. It was three weekdays and the weekend. Woo-hoo. Not that I wasn't at least grateful to have that, indeed I was. I needed to get away. But nothing stressful. I needed to lie on a beach somewhere and get away from things here. So a friend and I went to a small, remote island off the coast of Mokpo. Mokpo is a small beach town, about an hour bus ride away from Gwangju. From there we took a ferry, and it was another hour. We landed on Odaldo, a small island with lots of seaweed harvesting nearby, and a small water park with slides. The beach was small, and the sand was more rocky than smooth, but the water was warm and I was content. While I was at Boryeong, there were so many people on the beach that every time you turned around in the water there was some little kid drifting into you on an innertube, or a parent pushing you out of the way to get to their kid who's drifting off in an innertube. So to be at a smaller beach, with hardly any people compared to the thousands at Boryeong, was much more relaxing. Although, whichever beach you go to here, the majority of people have on long sleeved shirts *in* the water. Or huge visors that cover most of their face. Or they bring a tent and lie inside of it instead of on the sand soaking up the sun. Not to say being sun-conscious is a bad thing. Most Koreans try to stay as white as possible. Different from a lot of Americans who try as hard as they can to stay bronze all year.

After my peaceful day trip to Odaldo, I went to Seoul for a couple of days. Always a huge contrast to anything quiet and relaxing. Hung out with a few of my close friends. Ate good foreign food that I can't find here. Got confused trying to figure out subway stops. We sat on the patio of a quaint little bar, watched pretty girls with adam's apples walk by. Then realized we were next door to a transvestite club. I definitely miss living in a community that doesn't shun different lifestyles and beliefs. This small town (and by small I mean a million people, but it is still considered the boonies of South Korea) doesn't seem very open to different lifestyles. Seoul is definitely the place to live if you crave diversity. Sometimes I wish I lived in Seoul, but I'm glad I have it to escape to.