After Mokpo - Friday, August 15th

So I left off in Mokpo, where I had my own room at the Shangria Hotel. We had an amazing dinner with the Governor, and saw Batman at a theater.

The next morning, we boarded our two buses and headed for Busan! We had a late start for some reason. Then, after we'd only gone a few blocks, we pull over because a guy on our bus feels sick. We wait for a taxi to come to take him to the hospital, later finding out that he has a kidney stone! Oooh. So, we had an even later start. We are supposed to visit a tea farm, but instead skip that and go straight on to our second "experience," Nak-An Castle. This is a traditional village that people visit to get a sense of what it was like centuries ago. We tour around the village. Then we had an experience making a traditional fan by gluing strips of paper onto a pre-made fan. Next we had an experience dyeing cloth with pigments made from nature - green tea, gardenia flower, clay, etc. That was actually pretty fun! It got us in the shade for awhile at least - it was sooo hot that day.


My cloth drying - I tried a little tie-dye!

Scenes from the village.





After a sweet-potato-heavy lunch, we went to the Sun-Chen Bey bird place. Here, we walked along wooden decks over a reed-grass area looking at nature. Amongst the reeds, we could see little crabs all over the place! The weather had turned cooler, and it was quite nice walking in the area with a cool breeze blowing.


See the crabs?

Next we drove on to Busan! Busan is a port city, known for shipbuilding and fish markets. We were scheduled to go to what our itinerary says is "the most bigest fish market in east northern Asia", then eat dinner then go to our hotel. After our long day we were wishing we could just go straight to the hotel, but alas. We got to the fish market around 7:30 pm (late). When we got off the bus, the fish smell was immediately overwhelming - it hit you in the face, oh! It was a crowded market, and all 60 of us were supposed to walk down this narrow street together. I wasn't enthusiastic about this at first, but the fish market was really amazing. Stall after stall was stacked with fish, some in tanks, most layed out on tables. Every fish imaginable. Then we went through what was I guess a restaurant area, where you could pick out your fish and have it prepared right there.








We didn't eat dinner at the fish market though, and instead went to this tourist restaurant. Then we checked into our hotel. But this time, instead of getting my own room, I had TWO roomates! Christina, Tori and I checked into our room on the 17th floor. The room was actually very swank - modern, the kitchen hidden behind a smooth wall, very nice bathroom - except that it was a little cramped with three of us. Oh well.

Stay tuned for the next episode!

Post-Camp Recap

I'm back home! After 30 hours of travel, sad and stressed-out crying all the way from St. Louis to KC, I finally made it home Sunday night. Since I didn't have much Internet access (or time) during those last two weeks in Korea, I'm going to recap them now! Enjoy.

Coming home!!!

Yawn. I got up at 5:30 am this morning (went to sleep around 2). Took the subway to the Koreana hotel, where my big luggage was stored. Took the bus to the airport. Got checked in - everything went smoothly! Incheon airport is super swank. Every major luxury brand you can think of has a store or several here. It's kind of funny because that's all I've been seeing here, luxury labels; except the ones I saw were all fakes :-)

And there's free wifi here! Hoorah. I board in 30 minutes, then have a 14 hour flight to Dallas, a three hour layover, fly to St. Louis, have a 2 hour wait, then take the Amtrak to KC. It is going to be a loooong day.

I can't wait to get home.


Me enjoying the free wifi, trying not to fall asleep.

Aaaaahhhhhh....

I have just had the most amazing afternoon. Right now, I'm sitting in the PC room of the Dragon Hill Spa. After two unsuccessful tries at finding an authentic Korean jjimjilbang (thanks for nothing, Lonely Planet), I found this one online last night, and Shelly agreed to try it out with me today. First, it was easy to find! Which was good, because just finding the other two, which turned out to be closed, was verry difficult. And it is raining today, so we didn't want to be walking around in the rain looking for this place. But joy!! After a short subway ride, we walked out of the station and found it almost immediately.

And it is sooo nice. It's a 6 floor spa. So first we got our lockers and showered. Then we took our time dipping into sevaral baths. There were different temperatures (warm, hot and COLD!), and different treatments (natural sea water, seaweed, ginseng, etc). Then, we got a body scrub! This is where someone scrubs you with kind of a brillo-pad type thing, and layers of skin come off. It was really nice, actually. Now we're exploring other parts of the spa. There are some cave/dome type places that are really hot - it looks like you're entering an oven. There's a big room where lots of people are watching the Olympics and snacking. There's this PC room. There's a cinema, a rooftop garden and BBQ, and who knows what else. The best part is that it's only about $10 to come here, and you can stay as long as you want. Special things like our body scrubs are additional, but it was at least half what you'd pay in the states.

This has been a great day for a spa, because the last few days here in Seoul have been kind of rough! My legs were so sore from walking, I haven't been sleeping much, and this is just a confusing city! It's so big, and not being able to speak or read Korean is obviously a hinderance. But I feel ready to tackle some nightlife tonight!

After today, I have one more full day here in Seoul, then leave to come back home the next morning. Yeah!!

Whilrwind tour of Korea

Wow, it's been six days since I've been able to blog!

I don't have much time...we're leaving our hostel for another since there's no vacancy here for tonight. But here's a quick rundown of what's been going on!

After Mokpo, we drove to Busan. Busan was REALLY cool - a big city by the beach. We got in late, toured the fish market, ate dinner and checked into the hotel. The hotel was VERY modern and swank! Then we had free time for the beach!! Except, it was only for two hours. TWO HOURS!! Oh well. It was a great time, a cool morning with a light breeze, so I had a nice long walk on the beach. Oh yes, our two hours at the beach was from 9 am to 11. Riiight. After the beach, we ate at a great restaurant, then got on the bus for Gyeong-ju, an historical city.

There, we toured these tombs in these big mounds. That night we checked into a less-nice place, an educational center / hotel. The next day we toured Gyeong-ju some more, going to a museum, a temple and another temple.

The next day we got into Seoul! We went to one of the palaces, which was pretty cool. Then the bus dropped us off to spend FOUR HOURS in Itaewon, a shopping district. The best thing we did was went up the Seoul Tower - kind of like the seattle space needle I think. It was up on a hill, and we had an amazing view of Seoul! This city is just too huge. It's crazy.

Anyway, to make a long story short, we're now on our own. I'm with 5 or 6 other people, and we stayed in a hostel last night. We are getting ready to go to another hotel now that is close by. So, we're basically backpacking around Seoul! We left our big bags at the Koreana hotel, the nice hotel our entire group stayed at for two nights here. We're just toting around the essentials now. I'll write more later, gotta run!

Leaving Mokpo

Yesterday we left camp around 2:30, and got to the Shangria Hotel in Mokpo. No, not that Shangri-la, or the Sangria, the SHangria. Whatever. So I said that on our last break the dorm was like a 5-star hotel. Well, it was, compared to our dorm. But here, this is really the lap of luxury!! First, most people had to share a room, but I got MY OWN ROOM. Then, the room is beautiful. Wood floors, a wood screen over the windows, a low Asian style bed, a TV, a mini fridge, and a big bathroom. The bathroom had the bidet toilets, which we had at on campus, except there, I never wanted to stay long enough to figure out what all the buttons did. But here at the Shangria, yes, I sat on the toilet for 10 minutes playing with the amazing toilet! Hehe.

Dinner with the governor last night was amazing. It was on the 8th floor of the hotel, which had picture windows looking over the ocean. Each of us had about 10 different little plates in front of us, with all different kinds of fish, sushi, vegetables and soups. The principals from all for camps were there, and our head girl, Hermes, gave a speech too. We got to dress up and have a nice meal.

After that, there was a festival going on - today is Korea's Independence Day, so we watched some traditional Korean folk performances. Then we found a theater and watched...Batman. It was in English, with Korean subtitles! And it was kind of an adventure figuring out how to get to the right theater. Then came home and crashed in the wonderful hotel bed, but had a 6:00 am wake up call this morning. I just finished breakfast and we're supposed to be on the bus at 8 am. I hope we can sleep on the bus :-)

Does this Coffee Shake make me look fat?

You all thought I would lose a lot of weight coming to Korea because of the food. Well, if all I ate was cafeteria food, that would probably be true. But with all the snacks and beer, I feel like I've gained weight. Then there is this:

The ever-present ice cream freezer. These freezers are everywhere! In every shop, temple, and convenience store, at the Bamboo Forest, and...in our dorm cafeteria. And it's so hot here that it always sounds good. And the best thing is this:

The Coffee Shake, aka Shake in a Bag. You unscrew the top, mush it with your hands to unfreeze the ice cream, then suck. Deliciousness.

Last night at camp!

Camp is officially over as of 11:00 today! Last night we had our final events. First, all 12 teams performed their skit. We took known stories or fairy tales and the students learned the lines and made costumes and sets. Ours was The Emporer's New Clothes. Phew, teaching Korean students how to correctly pronounce Emporer is hard, but they got it!

The Emperor

The Emperor is Naked!


We had the Golden Bell quiz competition after that. Two of my students made it into the final round, and one got 4th place overall! The funny thing was that the prizes for the top five students were things like toothpaste and soap :-)

Staff and Bill Gates in the Final Round of Golden Bell

The Emperor in Golden Bell

Next was the homeroom party. We had a cake and other snacks and pigged out on junk food. Mmmm. Eating cake with chopsticks is fun. There was a lot of picture-taking going on. I gave the kids my gifts I had brought from America (American flag slap bracelets! Red White and Blue keychains!) which they loved. We smeared each other with frosting and promised to all e-mail each other.


The Cake!

Mmmm, Let's Eat

Class Picture


After that, we had our final teacher party in the cafeteria. Principal Park was into having all of us dance the Oh Doo Da Day "folk dance," and wanted all of us to sing. Yeah. Then we all went to norae bang (karaoke) for more singing!


Shelly doing the "Folk" Dance

Jesse sing us a song!

Me and My Co-Teacher

Today, we had our Closing Ceremony. Principal Park speaks, for the very first time, clears his throat, talks about our new frontier spirit, and encourages us to love ourselves ;-) Then the teachers line up, and every students comes by and shakes our hand. This is the part that gets so emotional! A lot of the kids are crying, which is really sweet.

Now I'm just packing up, ready to get out of here! We take the bus to Mokpo this afternoon, have dinner with the governor of the province tonight, and head to Busan (a beach town) to start our Korea tour. I'm not sure what the Internet situation will be like once I leave campus, but hopefully I'll be able to get online!!

Food

I just got back from eating...PIZZA!!! It was so incredibly good. I had skipped dinner tonight because I wanted to sleep for an hour before the evening Survival Games. Which was of course a bad idea. But someone suggested pizza so I was in. It was a little difficult ordering, but like always we worked it out. And it was greasy and cheesy and wonderful.

Speaking of "survival games," after our first one at the gym, the kids wrote in their journals about how they were mad that it had nothing to do with survival. They were hoping for paint ball or something like that, but instead got a relay race and a "folk dance" - some waking, clapping, disco for four counts, then as Principal Park says, "Change-ee Partners!" I don't know why it's called a folk dance. And the music we use is Oh Doo Da Day.

Camp is almost over!! Tomorrow we teach our last class!!! Then we have the skit performances and Golden Bell quiz game. We'll have a teacher's after that. The next day is the closing ceremony. Then...?

Fashion

Speaking of fashion with the watches, Korean fashion is something else. First of all, everyone is completely thin with straight shiny black hair. In other words, absolutely beautiful. They can wear anything and it looks amazing. Our students are no exception. Layering is huge here. Girls wear these drapey vests and baggy t-shirts. Baggy shorts with built in suspenders are fashionable. Girls at camp don't wear high heels, thankfully, but almost everywhere else, women wear heels! At the bamboo forest yesterday, they were all in heels! And that was walking around steep, hilly paths!

But the boy's fashion is great too. Mostly we think that boys would get beat up if they wore this fashion to school in the US! Skinny jeans and man-capris with big Nike air sneakers are popular. It's cute, although I don't see how they wear skinny jeans in this heat :-)

Hello!

I video-chatted with my mom this morning, and she said that my family was reading my blog! So, hello! Thanks for reading! If you want, you can leave a comment! Also, I just added some photos to this blog, so scroll down to previous posts to see them.

Video chatting is great. I try to chat with Nicholas at least every other day or so, sometimes twice a day. When I'm going to bed, he's waking up, and vice versa. It's great to actually see him when we talk!

Today we had a full day of teaching, and classes went pretty well. The students here are all genuinely nice and sweet. We walk around saying Hello!! and waving with both hands to everyone. But in class they can be sooooo quiet. They're really shy about trying to speak English. So I do a lot of exercises where they repeat after me, so it's the whole group speaking, not one student. But having them speak alone is important too. I hear a lot from the Korean teachers that they are trying to build the student's confidence.

After classes and skit practice, it was Movie Night tonight, which meant a free night for us "foreign" teachers! We walked down to the stationary store. All the kids wear these super cool, big bright colorful watches, and I really wanted one. Then my watch battery died, and I really NEEDED one. We tried to get to this store a few times. First, it was too late in the evening (since we usually don't get finished with work until 9pm, it's hard to get there before closing). Then, without really thinking about this until we were about a block away, we realized it was Sunday evening, and that it was probably closed. Which it was. So tonight we went back AGAIN and it was open!! I got me a watch. This store is great though because they have so much cool stuff! And we talked to the owner, and he told us he had been to the US last year and had seen Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom on the red carpet for Pirates of the Caribbean 3! He gave me a discount, and candy. That's just the sort of thing that happens in Korea. And we're in a SMALL TOWN in Korea, nowhere near Seoul. We were told that this is like the Alabama of Korea!


Me and my cool new watch.

Never Mind...

OK, skip that about not getting a hangover with hite. Apparently it can happen! Last night was a total blast and definitely worth the consequences. We started out with a party in the teacher's lounge. We had the usual snacks, but the principle bought Bamboo Wine too! It was the coolest thing. The "bottle" was a section of bamboo about the size of a regular wine bottle. It had a hole in the middle, and out poured this blueish-green liquid! It didn't taste that great, and was pretty strong, but was really cool to try. Then we hit the norae bang for some karaoke. Oh my. A great time was had by all. We sang a lot of the songs that we did for the elementary camp: Uptown Girl, Dancing Queen, I want it that way, etc. What a blast. Then we came back, and hung out on the picnic tables outside the dorm for a while longer. We whispered, because the principal was asleep within earshot.

And this morning, after three hours of sleep, we got up for camp! Today was field trip day though, so at least we didn't have to teach. Today was a lot of fun. First we walked through a Korean Garden, which I think didn't exactly turn out as planned. The busses dropped us off on a country road somewhere, and we walked up another road to a little pagoda. It wasn't especially beautiful to look at, no manicured gardens or anything. It kind of seemed like we were in someone's back yard (?). Then we went to a literature museum. We watched a film on the poets and novelists of the region. It was a great film. I watched it twice! The highlights were that it was in a dark air conditioned room...and we could sleep. Haha.

After that we had lunch at this tourist hotel that served a "western style" meal. It was a weirdly sweet potato soup, and a pork cutlet, salad, rice and a few french fries. And it wasn't good. Oh well. Next we went to a Folk Museum, where exhibits showed how the ancient koreans lived. We finished off with a trip to the Bamboo Forest right by the campus, which was great.

All in all it was a pretty relaxing day. Some people from our group went to the local jim jil bang, the sauna/spa place. And now I'm going to bed early. Only four more days of camp left!!!!


Typical set up for a teacher's party; one of the volunteers.

Hite and squid jerky...mmm!

The bamboo wine!

Out comes the green liquid.

Kathryn and Karolina at the no rae bang.

Super fun no rae bang!

The gardens at the literature museum were really beautiful. It was a beautiful day with blue skies and fluffy white clouds.

Some of my students at the "western-style" lunch.

Me and a few other girls at the lunch. Peace!

Yes, she's praying to a stone that looks like a penis. We learned at the Korean Folk Museum that ancient women did this, in hopes of having a male baby. Indeed!

Back to normal...

Our bathrooms are back to smelling disgusting again. When we got back from our mid-camp break, the bathrooms had recently been hosed down with water and the trash was emptied, and it didn't smell! They've been gradually getting worse, and now are back to their old self. Now I think it is because Koreans don't flush their TP, they put it in a little trash can beside the toilet. (Reasons for this I've heard are it's better for the system and the water purification) Well, I guess if these trash cans never get cleaned out, it's going to smell like what's on them! Uggghhhh.

The day is finally done

Phew! Skit practice is over. While we were practicing, the sky got really cloudy and yellow, and the wind was blowing eerily. Then the sky got red!! Then it got really dark, and started raining. There was some great lightening. But it was past the mountains from us. It was really cool because when the lightening lit up the dark sky, the mountains were outlined. It's cooler now, too, so maybe it will be nicer sleeping.

Last night we thought we would relax and watch some DVDs. After the crazy "survival games" at the hot hot school gym, we came back and bought 22oz Hites at the convenience store and started watching Arrested Development in Jamey's room. Then Silverstone comes by, and tells us there's a party in the teacher's lounge! We follow up him there, and all the Korean teachers and a few other American teachers are there. There's Hite and snacks set out. We had a great time. The thing about Hite is that you can drink a lot of it and enjoy the company, but it's so light and watered down that there is no hangover the next morning! At least for me, anyway.

So today ends our three-day run of teaching two classes per day. Tomorrow is a half day of classes, then Mini Olympics (another hot time in a gym with teenagers and their sweaty smells).

Oh, I was going to write about teaching! I am surprised at how much I like teaching, and I think I am pretty good at it! The students may think the subject is boring (everyday numbers!) but I think I at least make it fun. I had one of the best classes yesterday. Everytime I walked into the room, the students would all start applauding!! It was kind of weird, actually :-) I finally asked why they applauded, and the girls said, "Teacher, beautiful!" For some reason they were really energetic and did what I asked them with enthusiasm. Today I had one of the worst classes. It was after lunch, and everyone was tired. I was tired! I was glad when the class was over.

From what I gather, this co-teacher method is common in Korean English classes. There is a Korean teacher who has studied English in the class who can help translate and explain things and make sure the students understand, and a "native" speaker to take charge of the lessons. I can tell that the middle school students are better speakers that the elementary students. It is somewhat exhausting teaching English in Korea because even though the students and the Korean teachers can speak English, I have to really pay attention to understand what they are saying. So it's not like having a conversation with another English speaker, it takes more concentration. I actually like to kind of repeat what I think they are saying as they talk, to make sure I am hearing them correctly. So after a day of teaching and this intense listening, I am quite tired! Time for bed.

Long day

Wow, what a long day. A full day of teaching, then we did a scavenger hunt. I just had dinner (with pretty much every dish containing meat, so I supplemented with potato chips). Ahhh, now just another two hours of Journal Writing and Skit Practice, until 9. I'm so tired now, but somehow at 9pm I get a second wind and could probably go for a Hite :-)

Cultural Excursion part 2

After our walking meditation with the monk, we slept a little, then had breakfast, then got packed up. It was a bit confusing after that. I think we were supposed to stay longer and have more "experiences" at the temple, but we think that we probably got kicked out. For one, a person from our group got injured (walking around the temple in the dark after drinking soju probably isn't the best idea :-)), and honestly our group just wasn't taking the experience very seriously. So we left the temple around 9 am, and went to the Haenam Cable Car. We got in and rode up to the top of the mountain. It was sooo lush and green. Then at the top, there was a long staircase we climbed to go even further. The view from the top was amazing - lush green mountains misty and hazy.

After that, we took a long bus ride back into Mokpo, and ate at the vegetarian restaurant. Then we stopped at Lotte Mart (kind of like a Wal-Mart) and had some time to shop! I got some nail polish remover and this cool facial mask. Then we took the bus back to Damyang.

When we got back, Principal Park had arranged for this amazing meal for us in the cafeteria. It was the special barbecued pork, but there were plenty of vegetables and rice for me. And beer! Woo! We got to eat with the new Discipline and Nurse teachers, and the Head Teacher, Silverstone. That is his understanding of Sylvester Stalone, I think :-) We had a great time, and got pretty talkative because of the Hite.

Cultural Excursion

WOW. We just got back from our cultural excursion that fell in between our two camps. The last four days have been amazing!

First, we take a bus Muan, one of the other camps. We get rooms at their dorm, and let me tell you, it was like going to a five star resort compared to our dorm. The furniture was more modern, they have AIR CONDITIONING, they have a BALCONY with these great sliding glass doors, and they have a private bathroom in the room, with a shower. Heaven.

From there, we took the bus to nearby Mokpo, a city on the ocean. There, we attended the Mokpo Maritime Cultural Festival. We had reserved seating, which put us up close to the performances. We saw some traditional dance, drumming, fire spinning, etc. Then...pop music! First was a Korean rapper, who was quite good. Then on comes a Korean pop band. They were dressed ironically as super dorky guys with suspenders and bow ties, all in red and white. They played a fun ska-punk-pop mixture. Korean pop is fun because usually the verses are in Korean, but the chorus is usually in English or at least a mix of Korean and English, so we can sing along to them. But maybe the most entertaining part of that part of the night was watching how competitive Koreans are with their seats. If you even so much as looked like you were going to get out of your seat, they would pop their kid down to save the seat then climb over people to get the seat!! It was crazy. Also, we had surprise fireworks - they were speaking in Korean, so maybe they said something like "Now for the fireworks!" But they came as a complete surprise to us and I almost had a heart attack :-)

The next day, after a nice sleep in the luxury dorm rooms, we set off for a beach in Haenam. The beach experience wasn't quite what we were expecting. First, we watched a presentation of what was planned for this beach area (a nude beach, and a robot park!), and found out that the beach was man-made. Perhaps man-made means some shipped in sand and a lot of mud. So the water was muddy, and walking along the beach it squished between your toes. Also, it was a cloudy overcast day, which was a bummer. But they had all these white tents set up, that maybe you paid for. We had a few tents for our group. So we did a little swimming, had some lunch, and just relaxed. They had some fun water sports, like the banana. I rode the Fly Fish, a big clamshell-looking inflated piece, that sailed in the air behind a boat. That was a lot of fun!

Next, we drove to Jindo for dinner and show. Dinner was at this amazing restaurant where we got to eat in the traditional style, sitting on the floor at low tables. The food was great, and so was the experience! Then we went to the Korean Summer Music and Dance Festival, where we watched several performances in an auditorium. It was held in the National Center for Korean Namdo Arts, which was maybe the most architecturally amazing building I have ever seen! You can see an online picute here (http://www.namdo.go.kr/eng/sub05/01.html) but it really doesn't do it justice. Besides the facility, the performances were truly amazing too. The first was a Fan Dance and other dances, then a percussion performance and other musical performances. It was a very enjoyable evening.

The next day was what I was really looking forward to - our temple stay. We went to the Daeyeung temple in Haeman. Now, the communication to us on what a temple stay actually entailed was about zilch - about the same as communication about all of our activities. So, we didn't really know what to expect. First, our tour buses drove up the winding, steep hills up to the temple site. What I noticed right off was that there was a lot of people there! People all over, camping and walking around. We got off the bus and walked to our accommodations. The guys went to a separate location, and we went to a courtyard type of place. Half of the girls got smaller, 3-6 person rooms. The other half, including me, were in one big room.

For the rest of the afternoon, we wandered around and relaxed. Another thing I didn't expect, aside from it being so crowded, was that there were shops selling souvenirs and food and sodas and ice cream - all the comforts of home! Also, our meals weren't gruel or porridge - we had bi bim bop, which is rice and vegetables mixed together. Not to bad. After an afternoon of shopping, snacking and chilling, we had a "tea ceremony". This actually consisted of our monk talking to us about the philosophy of Buddhism, and drinking a small cup of tea :-) That was fine with me though.

After that, we really got down to business. We changed into our temple clothing, an orange vest and orange pants (see my photos). {Side note: next was dinner, and as it was the same as lunch, I wasn't in a big hurry to get there. Me and four or five other girls were hanging back, when the monk from the "tea ceremony" invited us in to a small room for a calligraphy demonstration - except with the language barrier we weren't sure what was going on. Katherine translated for us, and she's not the best translator :-) Anyway, we finally understood that he would paint on a blank folding fan. Then a game of Kai Bai Bo (rock paper scissors) ensued...and I ended up winning. So the monk drew my name in calligraphy on the fan!} Anyway, after changing and eating dinner, the ceremony started. A monk started drumming on a huuuuge drum. After a few minutes, another monk took over, and this happened a few times. Then the monks walked into the main temple, and we followed them in. The monks sung the prayers in a beautiful chanting. We had the words in Romanized Korean to follow along with, but it was really difficult. Next came the 108 bows, which was optional but I of course did. For this, we went from a standing position to a kneeling head on the floor position 108 times. We didn't know how to do this at first, but after watching others, we got the hang of it. The bowing was coordinated with drumming, so eventually I could do the bow without looking around. And we did this...108 times! It was pretty strenuous, and I sweat quite a bit. And today, the tops of my thighs are reallllllly feeling it! The whole time I was focusing on how happy I was to be in that place, and all of the blessings in my life. Just reapeating "thank you" each time with a smile on my face put me in a wonderful state.

After that, we took a rest, then went to a large space to practice meditation. This was the first time I had really tried meditating, and honestly I need a lot more practice :-) The monk (the same one as before) gave us instructions and said we would practice for half an hour, but it didn't feel like that long. Basically we sat in lotus position (I could get into half lotus) and sat still for 30 minutes. Near the end, my legs were so sore I had to let them relax out of the position. Also, it was difficult because there was a guy taking pictures of us the entire time. I think they're putting a magazine together for us or something. But it was nice to try this time. After that we went to sleep because...

The next day we were awoken at 3 am for walking meditation! We were awoken with the same drum used in the 108 bows. The same ceremony was performed with the drumming and the chanting, at 3:30 am. Then our monk took us on a walk around the grounds. First he pointed out some of the features of the temple, like where the great dead monks were buried, and the main banner explaining the purpose of the temple. Then the monk explained how to do walking meditation and led us through the path in the dark to practice! It was reallly amazing, I hung back to the very edge of the pack. It was so peaceful, with the wind blowing through the trees, the water pouring down the stream, and water trickling gently along the path. The sky was beginning to get light as we got back, and most of us fell back asleep.

To be continued...