March 19th - 25th

I have all ready been here a month and it seems like I only just got here. Time is flying by so fast! I only had two classes this week, so I had a lot of free time. For one of the nights, I went bowling with a group of people. I haven't bowled for a couple of years so my first game was pretty rough, but the second game we played I did a lot better. The real highlight of the week though, was our weekly field trip that the school takes the GV and the students from Miami University (Ohio) on. For this trip they brought us to a farm. None of the students were very excited about this trip before we went, but it ended up turning into a really fun experience. It was only about an hour away from Wonju, so it was an easy trip. When we got there, they started us off with face painting. They supplied us with the painting supplies and we thought that they would have someone painting for us, but instead the students had to paint themselves! Some of the designs got pretty wild but it was a good bonding experience for the group since the GV and Miami students usually stay in their own groups. After about an hour of face painting and another thirty minutes for lunch, they brought us outside to make rice cakes called Injeolmi. This type of rice cake is made by repeatedly pounding rice with wooden tools that look like giant hammers (I didn't catch their actual name). The people on the farm let us actually do the hitting and after about half an hour they coated it in a bean powder and let us try it. Admittedly, it wasn't my favorite thing, but some of the other students really enjoyed it. After the rice cakes, we were brought over to a tractor that had some barrels hooked up to the back and we had to ride in them over to where they kept their strawberries. When we got off, they told us to look for leaves and flowers and they would be used later. We were all pretty confused and it was hard to find anything that wasn't dead since spring is only just starting. They brought us to the strawberries (which were inside greenhouses) and they gave each of us a container to fill with them to take home. The fruit was a nice surprise because it seems like there is a lot of vegetables here and not a whole lot of fruit. After we were done picking the strawberries, they brought us back to where we had done our face paintings and told us to take out our leaves and flowers. They then gave each of us a white handkerchief and told us we were going to dye them using what we had found. The way that they had us do this was by having us fold the handkerchief over the leaves, giving us all spoons and told us to just start hitting the leaves! By doing this, the moisture was forced out, leaving the stains of the plant behind. It was definitely an interesting way to dye something. I finally got to go into downtown Wonju, where all the street shopping can be done. It was similar to the one that I visited while in Seoul, but this one was a lot less busy. My favorite part about this place was their pet store! They had puppies running all around so I was able to play with a lot of them.