Folk dancing and neckalce making...

Today's field trip was to a very interactive cultural learning centre. I can imagine that it would be like the Children's Discovery Centre or something.

When we arrived, there was a crowd of children waiting at the gates. Each pair had a sign with one of our names on it. I got "Alex" and "Steven". They were very shy to begin with, but I quickly got the idea that these two must spend a lot of time in the principal's office. They were still very good kids though. We started by making a sort of rice cookie thing stuffed with sweet beans or sesame seed and steamed over pine needles. Although I am sure that the real ones must be delicious, the version that I made with two 10 year olds was barely edible.

Afterwards, we took turns pummeling rice paste with a big huge wooden hammer (on a huge wood block). Lots of fun.

After lunch, we had a drum lesson. The drum teacher then put on one of the most bizarre hats I've ever seen and did a sort of Mongolian - Sufi kind of wave your head around spinny dance that made the long whip on the top of the hat swirl all over the place. Ummm, yeah. Kinda had to be there. It was phenomenal!

I met my Korean co-teacher this afternoon! Her name is Mrs. Pak (Park) and she speaks Korean (of course), English and... French! Whenever she forgets a word in English, she just says it in French and I understand. On Wednesday, I will get to my apartment and on Thursday, I will start!!!!

We made silver necklaces using a sort of silver clay that we imprinted with leaves, then fired in a kiln and polished. Mrs. Pak wrote my name on mine using Hangeul (Korean script). It looks like this: upsidedown A, sideways T, 7 with a tail, vertical line, the number 4, circle, sideways T.

Hope you are all well. Even the most banal news from home will be a godsend once the homesickness kicks in.