Hey everyone, 안녕하세요,

Things are winding down here as we approach summer holidays. Middle school finished on Monday so I have a month off from there. Elementary school finishes this Thursday and then I have a lovely 12 day long vacation (including weekends). I plan to go to the south-western most province of Korea Jeollanamdo and then on to Jeju Island. I'll be taking a ferry so hopefully it won't sink (too soon to make that joke?).

During the summer holidays I have to do a 9 day summer school/ camp for the elementary kids. I had originally thought it was two 5 day camps for grades 3-6, but this changed to a five day camp for grades 3-6 and a four day camp for grades 1 and 2 of elementary school (I've never taught them before so that'll be interesting - apparently some of them can't even speak Korean yet!) I actually almost didn't realise the camps had changed and it was only when I asked the teacher about numbers of students that I noticed the changes. Thank goodness! I will do a space themed camp for the grades 3-6 and a beginners English camp for the grade 1 & 2's. As it's summer school we are aloud to do more fun things like watching films and making crafts so they should be good.

July began with my birthday. I actually celebrated it over a few days. On my birthday my friend Alex took me out to a Vietnamese restaurant for food, then the next evening I took two of my co-teachers out for a meal and we have a spicy chicken dish. Then on Saturday some friends joined me for birthday drinks at a western style bar called Thursday Party and an Indian at Namaskar restaurant.

After the high of my birthday week, came a low - the following Monday I was at middle school and my grade 1's (the class I struggle most with - even to get them to open their books and write a word) decided it was time to tell me they hated English and their English teacher i.e me. I laughed it off but inside my heart sank.... not so much at how they viewed me, but that they hated English. I had seen my job here as not just teaching English but trying to inspire them to like it so they would want to learn it more themselves. I realised I had failed on that. I know now that I shouldn't expect everyone to love English and so this was an important lesson for me to learn. That said, it has inspired me to spend a lot more time researching ways to improve myself as a teacher and new and interesting things to add to lessons.

The weather has been interesting this month - it is monsoon season in Korea which means the days are usually overcast and rainy (pretty much like England really!). We even had the edges of a typhoon that skimmed Korea last weekend. The wind and rain was the hardest I had ever seen it and it was quite a sight to behold, even if it meant staying inside all weekend. This weekend we were supposed to get another one but its Sunday evening now and I haven't felt a gust of wind in days! Like so many things in Korea..... they exaggerate and panic about nothing lol.

I have done some more travelling too. Towards the end of June I visited Gyeongju again to catch up with a friend, Andy, that I hadn't seen since Orientation and we went to Gyeongju Museum which was interesting and we got to see some 1500 year old crowns of the rulers of the Silla dynasty. A few weekends ago I also went to see the Ulsan Sports Complex which is another of the scenic sites of Ulsan. There was a beautiful lake there, along with the swimming pool, football stadium and baseball stadium.

This weekend I have had an extra few days off due to Middle School being shut so I took advantage on Friday and visited the Onggi Village. This is a village of craftsmen making traditional Korean pottery. It was fascinating to learn about the many ways Onggi were used and how some of the pottery had even ended up in western Europe. When you travel around Korea you often see the big brown pots outside people's houses and it was often where they store food, especially the national dish, fermented cabbage called Kimchi. After the Onggi village, I visited the Gangeolgot cape. This is another of the scenic sites of Ulsan but is supposed to be viewed at the sunrise on New Years Day as its the place you can see the first sunrise of the year on the Asian continent. It was a nice area, although the maritime museum there was a bid disappointment and very expensive.

On Saturday I went to Haeinsa temple. This is one of the three jewel temples of Korea and contains the Tripitaka Koreana, 80,000 wooden blocks with all the sacred Buddhist scriptures carved in. I believe it is the largest collection in the world, and certainly in Korea. They were created in 1251CE and have been preserved carefully ever since. In fact their method of preservation in special buildings uses technology that modern science still can't surpass You cannot go into the buildings themselves to view the wooden blocks in full. The only thing you can do is look through slated windows at them stacked neatly on shelves. This helps preserve them, but was a bit of a disappointment after spending almost 50,000 won and a 6 hour round journey on the day trip. The temple itself is quite beautiful, as most Korean temples are and the views are stunning. I have also come to the conclusion that my Korea guidebook that I got as a Christmas present has been an absolute lifeline in enabling me to quickly and efficiently find my way to places like Haeinsa, which in this case involved a KTX speed train trip, a subway trip and an hour and a half long bus trip to find.

Today I decided to visit the Ulsan Museum and learned a bit about the history of the place, and especially its transformation into the industrial powerhouse of Korea since the first economic plan designated it as such in the 1960's. There are four main industries here - shipbuilding, petrochemicals, metal working and the automotive industry. Did you know that the first Hyundai car, in 1975, was called the "pony". I then went to the Taehwagang (Taehwa River) Park to explore it some more, walked through part of the Bamboo forest and got some great photographs. It was an enjoyable afternoon.

Finally, I have been trying to learn more Korean. I have found this great free website called Memrise where you can learn many different things. It contains lots of Korean vocabulary to learn and their method of teaching has really helped me. I have learned over 100 Korean words in a week! If I can keep this up, I'll have learned all 1500 on the Korean Made Easy For Beginners vocabulary part. Then it'll be time to look at Grammar.

Right, that's enough for this post. I am off on summer vacation on Friday so will probably update this blog again when I return. Until then, 안녕히 계세요.