We've moved!

I figured if we are still waiting to move into a new house then I might as well move the blog to
teachtravelplay.wordpress.com
And to my surprise the moment our blog moved we were told that we get to see our new house TODAY! Life is good.
Enjoy the new blog, it is still a work in progress as is our life here in Korea.
Much Love, Matt and Emily
http://teachtravelplay.wordpress.com/

Track 1 to "Thanksgiving Island Hopping": The YMCA

This weekend we celebrated our first Chuseok, one of the largest holidays celebrated in Korea. The three day holiday is comparable to an American thanksgiving, where families visit the tombs of their ancestors and eat traditional food associated with the festivities. Not only was the holiday appealing to our appetite but we got Friday AND Monday off of work!!! Seven of us EPIK teachers hopped on the first bus that left directly from work Thursday evening and headed to Mokpo, a port city with a ferry connection to the over three thousand islands that are sprinkled throughout the West Sea. We spent our first night in Mokpo sleeping in a traditional Korean hotel room that is nothing more than the above stated: A room. Seven of us shared the small floor space conveniently void of a bed so there were no arguments to be had over who slept where. In the morning we caught a ferry out to Haksean-do, but not before a friendly pharmacist recommended that I try one of her sea sickness elixirs, and for anyone who has traveled with me knows that if traveling by anything other than horse, I require motion sickness relief. The last thing I remember after swallowing the bottle is Matt trying to sneak onto the deck for some fresh air, getting caught and glared at by the sullen deck hand. I woke up two hours later just enough to carry my bags to the hotel and the rest of the evening is a blur of grogginess, but besides the "tiny bit of sleepy" the pharmacist warned me about the stuff works like magic!
The following day was Chuseok and typical of any culture celebrating a holiday everything for the most part was closed, we were however prepared with two boxes full of corner store goods: Rameyon noodles, wooden chopsticks, Soju, every type of sugary Korean snack food imaginable and snickers bars. We caught another boat (don't worry I was still feeling the effects from the "Dramamine" from the previous day) to Honn-do, an even smaller island near Haksean-do. The island was picture perfect, somewhere between the shabby chicness of Italy's Cinqua Terra and a surf village in central America. Off the boat were tents of fresh fish being cleaned and sold by the wives of fishermen, and a gang of elementary aged kids happily spending their holiday weekend chasing scruffy island dogs. We headed straight for the beach, most of us having spent the first month of teaching in doors for eight hours of the day. The pebble beach on Honn-do is surrounded by lush green mountains of dwarf pine and covered with large smooth pebbles mimicking over sized skipping rocks. Matt was more than excited to unveil his latest purchase: a "traditional" Korean speedo, seen in the olympic swimming pool here in Ulsan where we are living. He would of fit in with the other holidayers if it weren't for his size and abundant body hair. The other five teachers we were with went on a boat cruise around the island and Matt and I decided to fullfill our craving for some good hiking and headed up the mountain overlooking the island with views in all directions of surrounding water. Tucked into small clearings on the way up were tombs which in Korea look like large mounds of dirt covered in grass, the larger in size the more prominent the buried, these finds seems appropriate given the holiday we were celebrating and its tradition of visiting family tombs.
After we went back to Haksean-do the festivities kicked off with Soju, more soju and a giant stage set up in the middle of the town for Karaoke, in Korean "Norre-bang." There was a contest in which the winner of best norre-bang performance would win a mountain bike, and probably a few rolls of toilet paper, traditional gift or prize for anything from new baby, house warming, singing contest or equivalent. We were up against and entire group of uniformed coast guard, what appeared to be the town mayor and some very rehearsed gentlemen in suit and tie, but we got on the stage strong prepared with "The YMCA." Moments before our song even began however a belligerent man ran onto stage on began shoving all of us off, grabbing our microphones and yelling in Korean. He was restrained, sort of, and we continued our song, occasionally looking back to see him still throwing punches toward us, detained only by a few of our new Korean friends. It put a damper on our evenings to think that someone didn't want us there, until we continued the party with members of the town and all was forgotten. About an hour later Sandra and I were sitting with our backs to the corner store at a table with the rest of our group and about ten Koreans when we heard Niki say "Here's this guy again", he walked over and tipped us out of our chairs with one hand and began throwing another fit. At this point the girls we were with felt violated and scared and the testosterone of the guys in our group had risen enough to probably get us all thrown in jail. We asked some of our new friends what was going on and they kept repeating "Korean gangster" we didn't put up much of a fight, took our things and left.

In the morning we got back on our ferry and made our way back to the mainland, re-capping a weekend filled with fresh grilled fish, beautiful sunsets, gymnasium style sleeping, dancing into the night with Korean grandmothers, all of the warm and fuzzies that come with a life filled with travel, and the ever present reminder that we are guests here in Korea and that there are some things we will not ever understand, but every day the gap grows smaller.
Until next time, Happy Chuseok!
-Matt and Emily