Another week done and we can now say we're past the first quarter. Three months have gone by much faster than expected as it only seems like we landed three weeks ago.
The work week was great because we had a day off on Wednesday due to elections - a custom we hope Canada will embrace. I've now had 5 days off in 5 weeks, which has made time fly, but alas, the holidays are coming to an end. It's good that the elections are done with, just so that we can now walk around the city without getting bombarded with cheers and cards from the people campaigning. There's no recent news in terms of the North Korean situation but the election results might shed some light on what Korean people think of the situation. My understanding - which could be very wrong - is that many South Koreans thought that the the ship sinking and threats being thrown from both sides were being blown out of proportion on purpose by the President. Lee Myung-Bak is the most conservative, anti-North President that the South has had in quite a long time, so people's thoughts were that he was trying to drum up support for his party by exemplifying how bad the North is. Well, the election results had Lee's party losing a lot of seats so maybe many people think the new tough stance against the North - the stance that was taken long before the ship sinking - has been unnecessary and lead to more problems. This is just conjecture on my part, but many Koreans have told us they thought the Government has been trying to make the tensions seem worse.
With everyone out voting, Ali and I decided to spend the day by the river. By river, I mean the 10 feet wide stream that I walk over every day on my way to work. We always saw families hanging out on the little strip of greenery (there isn't a lot of green space so people get it where they can), putting up tents, playing badminton, throwing a ball, so we decided to give Uijeongbu's version of a beach a try. We set up shop under an umbrella but it was way too hot to stay for long. The temperature is pushing close to 30 degrees now. So we ended up making a big salad dinner and seeing a movie.
Our little make-shift set up at the river.
Thursday night, Ali and I headed to what the foreigners call "Ajima aerobics". "Ajima" is the name for old Korean women and every week by the river here, a woman leads an aerobics class and at least a hundred people gather and join in. Since we've been starting to get some exercise, we joined in on the fun. It was pretty hilarious because the 'work-out' was a lot more like choreographed dances (which we obviously didn't know and couldn't follow from really far back) and arm-waving and hip shaking. It was lots of fun and pretty cool to see so many old ladies shaking their rumps out there. That seems to be a cultural difference here; everywhere you look, there's usually someone doing some kind of work out, whether it's stretching or mountain climbing or using one of the machines scattered across this city.
On Saturday, a group of public school elementary Foreign teachers were getting with some of the Korean co-teachers to climb a mountain. It was organized by the Uijeongbu Office of Education so it felt like I was supposed to go. Ali could've gone but she wasn't in the mountain climbing mood that day because it was really hot out. I've never really been one to climb or hike or even walk up any type of slope, but it seemed to make little sense to be surrounded by mountains and never climb one. It ended up being a great experience, though. Not only did I get some exercise, but I met a lot of Foreign teachers who are in the same boat as me. Now, granted, very little climbing was involved - although there was one part where I had to hold a rope and walk up some rocks - but I still feel I can say I successfully climbed my first Korean mountain. It turned out to be an "amateur mountain" as one of the Koreans said, and several people in their 60's passed me, but nevertheless, I was impressed with my success. I plan to go back with Ali one day and we might have a picnic up on the peak. The group also went out for dinner which was all paid for, so that was nice.
Me at the peak of our 'beginner mountain'
The group of English teachers at the top.
After, not doing too much Friday and Saturday, Ali and I decided we needed to something on Sunday, so we decided to go see Nanta, a Korean somewhat non-verbal performance that is about a group of cooks trying to get several meals ready for a 6:00 wedding all the while using the various kitchen utensils to drum rhythmic beats. Think Stomp meets Korean cooking. The show is actually well known internationally; although, I'd never heard of it, it's played in over 30 countries, including a run on Broadway. The show ended up being a lot of fun. There was little actual dialogue, and what was spoken was sometimes in Korean, the humour was of the slapstick variety and the actual drumming and tricks the cast performed was very impressive. The show did drag a bit in a couple of spots but overall it very enjoyable.
These weren't our photos - we weren't allowed to take any - but this is what it was like.
We also spent our day doing some shopping. We discovered a big shopping district that has a lot of the American clothes stores like H&M, The Gap and, many others.
Well, the holidays are over so it's looks like we're back to the 5-day work week. Hopefully, we'll manage.
Love,
Ali and Jesse
