JinJu, Korea - July 28, 2002
Camp begins tomorrow. The weekend has been great. I arrived one day earlier that I was suppose and still able to get a room in the dormitory. The rooms are spartan and HOT! All of the teachers are staying in the dormitory and have a 12:00 midnight curfew each night. But despite that, I don't mind because at least I will get a good night sleep each night of the camp.
My first night I met an Australian guy named 'Paul' who is married to an American woman. We had a few pitchers of beer and enjoyed the first night before everyone else arrived. I was quite glad to arrive early just to get a good feel of everything beforehand.
We also had a day and a half of orientation to meet all of the other teachers. It seems as if the majority are either Australian or American. Well, those two nationalities make up more than half of the camp. The rest are British, Canadians, and an Irish guy and New Zealand guy. A pretty good assortment of people. Oddly enough there are about 4 americans and 1 British girl who are fluent in Spanish, nearly all 5 of them having had lived in Spain from anywhere from one to two years. That definetely came as a surprise.
Before working, we had a great Saturday night out drinking a tradtional Korean drink called 'dong-dong-ju'.. but of course I mainly stuck with my main drinking staple - beer. The 'dong-dong-ju' is kind of milky ricey sour taste of alcohol. The atmostphere of the place was great though, and it was definetely the best way to break in a group of new teachers and get to know alot of people really fast!
JinJu city isn't too bad. I spent a half of the day during the weekend exploring the castle that was along the river. There is also another historical side to this part of the country, as its where a famous Korean women jumped to her death taking a very powerful Japanese military man over the cliff. It was a deceiving attempt at romance on a romantic cliff that she saved her country by grabbing the man firmly and jumping over the cliff. Its a very famous event in Korean history.
I was also inquiring about the possibility of teaching Winter Camp. It turns out that it will begin a few days before New Year's Eve. When I first found out I was immediately uninterested in spending my New Year's Eve in a small Korean town with a midnight curfew. But after meeting the teachers and seeing how social it would be to have 23 other strangers in the same situation, I'm now thinking maybe it could be a possibility as well - and particularly for the money.
Tomorrow is the first day.. I've started my countdown already.. 3 weeks and 6 days to go.. its already a running joke among a few of the teachers :)
So far I have to say its stifling hot here. Its really hard to sleep at night in the dormitories. The air doesn't move much, and the beds and pillows are almost like rocks. The strange thing is that I've slept on floors many times, so I don't know why its so hard to sleep on this particular bed? But its not too bad, at least each of us gets a small room to ourself - originally I half-expected we would have to share a room with another teacher.
Next Journal Entry in JinJu, Korea:
August 4, 2002
You can email me at:
Wintermoon2@yahoo.com