Mid-term Weekend

I can’t believe it’s already October! This month completely snuck up on me. Having such a weird work schedule this last week really threw me off, and I was shocked when I woke up this morning and checked the date. Last weekend (9/26-9/27) was pretty quiet for me, compared to the last few. I got really paranoid because it seemed like every single one of my friends was getting sick, so I’ve been making sure to get plenty of sleep. I went out for dinner and drinks both Friday and Saturday night, but was home and in bed by midnight.
As I mentioned before, my school didn’t have any classes on Monday or Tuesday because the students had midterms. Monday morning I ran some errands around town, and finally took the subway by myself for the first time! It’s a little sad that it took me a month to do it, but that’s one of the drawbacks of living in the middle of everything – I’ve never had to go very far for anything, except when Carrie was there to drive me around. I was really glad that I could read in Korean – some signs underground are in English but not all, and I would never have found the right place if I couldn’t sound out the words. My subway stop is the big downtown transfer station, so I was nervous even though there are only two lines in Daegu!

Anyway, I met all the other teachers at school around lunchtime (everyone except me had to come in at the normal time) and every teacher in the school went out for lunch. It was delicious and huge – we had galbi with duck meat. As far as I can understand, eating galbi in a restaurant is usually beef, and at a restaurant it’s grilled right at your table. I’ve had beef and chicken galbi, and the duck was really good too. As I said, the meal was huge – we grilled two different types of duck, and then there was something that tasted like ham, and then a type of rice stew, a beef soup, a bowl of cold noodles, and finally dessert. The waitresses just kept bringing out more and more trays of food. Afterwards three of my co-teachers and I went out for coffee at an Italian restaurant. Then Carrie and I drove downtown and she helped me pay my bills. In Korea you don’t send checks to companies or receive paychecks; it’s much more common to either have automatic withdrawals and deposits (I do for my cell phone bill and my paycheck) or to go to one of your bank’s ATMs and electronically transfer the funds yourself using account numbers the companies give you.

So Carrie helped me do that for my gas bill, and then we drove out to Woobang Land. It’s the amusement park here in Daegu, and also the site of the Daegu Tower. We wandered around Woobang Land for awhile, not going on any rides but just enjoying the views (it’s a little higher than the rest of Daegu) and the scenery. It was actually a little creepy; since it was a Monday night very few people were there, and so even though it was getting dark only a few rides and stands were lighted up and operating. When it got darker we went into Daegu Tower and rode the elevator up 80+ floors, and there we could walk around and see a 360 degree view of the city at night. The lights were pretty but I don’t think the skyline is as scenic as most big cities in America – even though Daegu is the 3rd or 4th largest city in Korea, it has very few skyscrapers or architecturally fancy buildings; most condos are 20-30 floors and the clusters of them are pretty much the biggest buildings. Most others that I’ve seen or been in aren’t higher than 3-4 floors, even downtown.

On Tuesday I made lesson plans in the morning and met Carrie at school around lunchtime again. We drove to the “guarding mountain” of Daegu, Palgongsan, which, according to Carrie, is famous for three things: food and restaurants, hotels, and cultural or historical sites. We ate a really delicious lunch with two types of soup/stew, rice, rice water, and more than 15 side dishes, eaten on the floor, all for $10-11 apiece. Then we drove to Donghwasa Temple. It was similar to the Buddhist temple we visited in Jeonju with EPIK, but I liked Donghwasa better because it was up on a mountain and a lot cooler, there were far fewer people around (Tuesday afternoon), and the statues were amazing. The temple was founded in AD 493 and is still active – monks live and study there. The best part of the temple was “The Great Pharmaceutical Stone Buddha for Unification,” built in 1992. I’m not really sure what the ‘pharmaceutical’ in the name means or if that’s the best translation, but the statue was amazing. It’s a huge standing Buddha, 33 meter’s high, standing in the middle of a sort of circular courtyard. It’s hard to find a straight answer, but some websites I’ve searched through say it’s the largest standing Buddha in Korea, and some say it’s the largest in the world. It’s meant to represent hope for the reunification of North and South Korea. Some people were praying or taking pictures, and we walked around it three times to look at all the smaller stone carvings that surround the main statue. You could see the mountains and trees in the background and it was so beautiful.

After Donghwasa Temple we drove to Bongmu Park, also on Palgongsan Mountain. It’s just a recreational area around a small lake, Bongmu Lake; I saw people picnicking and hiking, and there are outdoor playgrounds and tennis courts. It sort of reminded me of a campground – there was even someone water skiing on the lake! We walked around for a few minutes and visited a small museum that was all about butterflies; they had hundreds of different species of butterflies pinned in cases with maps about where they were from; some of them were really big and beautiful. There was also a small greenhouse – lots of plants, obviously, and some more (live) butterflies, as well as a few cases full of gigantic scary beetles. It was a very long day with a lot of walking but I saw so much in one afternoon!