"Come and I will make you fishers of men"

Hm, after attempting to fish this weekend, it appears that I should not give up everything and become a fisherman- or woman for that matter! My host family took me to Kampo (Gampo) on Sunday afternoon to fish. Kampo or Gampo is located on the South East coast of Korea. We fished in the sea- the water was pretty gross and polluted. I did not manage to catch anything. However, Han Soong caught a few fish and my host father caught many. Na Kyung even caught one. I was worried we were going to have sushi from the fish we caught, but instead my host mother cooked a few of the fish into a soup we had for breakfast on Monday (I did not eat much of it!). Before the great fishing adventure we had sushi at a restaurant near the sea. Apparently the family eats there every time they go fishing. I was a little worried about the fish and decided to drink lots of soju to try and kill anything on the fish! I'm feeling fine- so do not worry!

Before all this we went to Bulguksa Temple, a famous Buddhist temple, another UNESCO World Heritage site, and to see a famous statue of Buddha, another UNESCO site. They were very nice. Sometimes I think all Buddhist temples look the same, but it was really pretty and a little different than the last Buddhist temple I visited. The statue of the Buddha was pretty cool. It was huge (I forget how tall) and carved out of granite. The sign said it is the best Buddhist artwork in the world. I am not sure how much stock I put into UNESCO site designations, but it was still nice to see.

Saturday night I went out to dinner with a teacher from my school. She invited me out to meet a friend of hers, another native English speaker. Linden turned out to be a Kiwi; he's from New Zealand! He was very nice and it was really interesting to talk to him about the cultural differences between America, New Zealand, and Korea (he's been here four years)! We went to an Indian restaurant- it was Korean-Indian, but still yummy. I even had naan! Afterwards we went and played pool- that was fun too.

Teaching this week had been good so far. The students are speaking a lot better than I initially thought- which is great. Next week I am going to make class a little more difficult. My dad gave me a great idea for a lesson and I am going to try and somehow work it in for next week's class. The idea is around the t.v. show American Idol. I never watched the show and actually do not like it at all, but a lot of my students are interested in learning American pop songs and like to sing, so maybe I can create something around this idea.

Some things that are coming together this week- an orphanage in which to volunteer, a university in which to take Korean language classes, and a church to attend! I am very happy and excited that these things are coming together. I have been trying to be patient and not too pushy and they all seemed to happen at once. My plan was just to work on a place to volunteer this week.

Check out the pictures, I've updated them! I updated Kangwon de Hakyo too! One of my favorite pictures is on the right hand side of this page. I have been teaching my host siblings how to pop snacks up in the air and catch them in their mouths! Hahaha, I'm such a good cultural ambassador!

-Jenna :)