This photo is a week late because with switching schools and preparing for a trip to Taiwan I didn't have time to post to my blog.

My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life - either from the previous week or something or someone about which I've been thinking. A simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

With the changing of the seasons comes an influx of new native English teachers to Korea. Since August approximately 7 new teachers have arrived in the Jeomchon area. Last spring we had a welcome dinner for the new teachers and I guess my former event planner self emerged and so I organized a dinner for all the teachers.

I was so smitten by the traditional restaurant Mr. Min and Mr. Kim had taken me to that I decided to hold the dinner at there, conveniently located in Jeomchon it had a selection of food that even the vegetarians could eat and cost a mere 10,000 won (around $9).

Over 20 people were able to make it for the dinner including all of the new teachers. We feasted on the spread you see in the photo above - tofu, fish, rice, a series of sidedishes (vegetables, greens, legumes, etc) with a conclusion of a simple rice porridge. It was a tasty dinner and a good opportunity for everyone to meet - I certainly wish there had been something similar when I had first arrived to Jeomchon, I don't think I met everyone until much later at a Thanksgiving event.

With the end of my contract at MTHS on Tuesday I started my first day at Hamchang Boys Middle and High School the very next morning.

HMHS is a semi-private school though I'm not quite yet familiar how that differs the school from a regular public school. From the little that I understand it seems one of the main differences is that the school gets both private and public funding.

As is apparent by its name HMHS is an all boys school. This was actually somewhat of a relief to me because the few female students I had at MTHS were among my most problematic. Though Korean boys are typically much more rowdy than their female counterparts they do not embody the eye-rolling snarling attitude of some Korean girls. For this reason I actually looked forward to the change from MTHS to HMHS.

Another major difference between the two schools is that HMHS is an academic school - therefore most students aim to go to college, a few of which are accepted into some of Korea's top universities. This of course will mean that there will be different expectations of me since the student body here has significantly different plans after high school than their MTHS peers.

Even after my first day it was obvious my experience at HMHS would be significantly different. For one they gave me a gift set with 3 bottles of wine from the school for Chuseok, an upcoming holiday. The next day they gave me a bottle of Korean alcohol, from "the teachers" (I assume they meant some sort of teachers' association). On Friday I gave a speech in front of the entire student body alongside another new teacher and was handed a small bouquet of flowers (those pictured above). And best of all people actually spoke to me - sure so far they have all been English teachers but I've probably spoken more to my co-workers in just a few days than I had in an entire month at MTHS.

Amidst the gifts of alcohol and flowers I also realized that teaching at this school will be more challenging than at MTHS where my main concern was to create easy yet interesting lessons for the low-level students. Here the students have a much higher level as I discovered when I taught class during the 3rd period of the first day there. Most of the students can understand significantly more than the students at MTHS and have the capability to ask and answer questions. Upon learning that I was a vegetarian one student raised his hand and asked if it was because I had a skin disease (?!?)

I think the following year will definitely be quite interesting and hopefully I'll be an effective teacher to these students.

I was fortunate that my final day of teaching with my MTHS contract was at Yeongsoon Elementary School. Though, as I have discussed before I don't particularly enjoy teaching this age group I do like kids and we spent the day coloring, playing games and enjoying cookies and juice.

In order to get the kids excited about their new teacher and to help her feel more welcome I had each student write a few sentences about him or herself. They then colored the cards and we hung them up on a board for everyone to see. Below are a few photos from our day -

I honestly thought saying good-bye to MTHS would be an easy task. The "trouble making" students and exclusive office atmosphere at the school were the reasons behind why I requested to be transferred to a different school. However, I don't think I quite took into account how much I enjoyed teaching a few of the classes and how fond I had grown for some of the students.

While the goodbyes with many of the classes were brief and concluded with me pleading to the students as they raced out of the room to "be kind to your new teacher!" there were a few classes where the students expressed dismay that I was leaving.

Most of these students were in one of three classes - my favorite classes at MTHS. Though at times rambunctious the students participated in class and at times gave funny and incredibly creative answers to questions. Though all of the boys were very excited to hear that my replacement was a young female teacher a few still said they were sad that I was leaving. One student even came up after class to shake my hand and thank me before saying goodbye - and after leaving ran back to class and shouted "never goodbye, teacher!" before running out again.

So, it was a bit more difficult to say good-bye than planned. Fortunately since we all live in the same town on occasion I run into my former students. I already ran into the boy I mentioned above, along with a couple of his classmates. They shouted my name, made the heart shape with their arms and waved at me from across the street. I had their new teacher with me at the time and I hope it gave her a positive first impression of the students (the Korean teachers have already taken to warning her that many of the students are "trouble makers"). I certainly hope they're as kind to her as they were to me.

After a year in Korea I've finally found the information network for the local Indian community. It turns out that most Indians keep in touch via a facebook group. I requested to be added and now I am privy to the announcement for events such as Ganesh Chathurthi.

Ganesh, for those of you who don't know, is one of the most recognizable Hindu gods with his elephant head and body of a human. He's incredibly popular in Hinduism because he helps the devotee overcome obstacles so many Hindus pray to him before starting something new. Ganesh Chaturthi is an annual event that honors Lord Ganesh.

Since my research has been with diasporic Hindu traditions and with the conclusion of my current job and the start of my new one I decided it would be auspicious to attend the event. I left quite early Sunday morning for Seoul and arrived at the beginning of the ritual. It was interesting to observe the puja (religious ritual) after spending so much time within an established Hindu community in the US. The man conducting the puja didn't seem to be a priest by trade and paused here or there to adjust things during the ceremony.

After the puja was complete the rest of the morning and into early afternoon was filled with cultural events - mostly singing and dancing and the occasional discourse. The entire event was being hosted by the local Hare Krishna temple and this sponsorship was evident in the discourse given. One man called for people to share the Vedic culture with non-Hindus, a type of prostelyzation of which I had never heard before in a temple (or amongst Hindus). Another man spoke at length about how one might define religion and gave a very outdated perspective of how religion is understood within academia.

It was an interesting event - one that I'm happy to have attended to have a better understanding how some Hindus continue to carry on their traditions and rituals in a country such as Korea.

Starting last week I began to slowly say good-bye to my students most of whom I have only been teaching since March. However, for the 2nd and 3rd year students of Gaeun High School I have been with them for an entire year and I was reluctant to say good-bye to them because I believe we had developed a good relationship within class.

The evening before I was to go to Gaeun for my final day a student from the school sent me a text message asking me if in fact I was leaving (I intended to tell them the following day) and expressed her sadness at my leaving. I left the following morning with a bit of a heavy heart knowing that this would be my final day at the school that I had enjoyed teaching the most.

When I entered my first class that morning I found the above message on the chalk board from my 3rd year students.  And so I started a series of classes with, I'm sure, will be some of my favorite students from my time here in Korea. Since I wanted my students to be read for their new teacher our final class was on interrogatives and after reviewing question words such as who, what, where, when, why and how I had the students get into small groups and think of questions to ask their new teacher.

After each class a few students came up to me to say good bye and express their dismay at my leaving. A couple wrote me messages on their worksheets, other gave me small notes and 3 female and one male student even asked me for hugs before I left (something that isn't commonplace in Korean culture). What really surprised me was that at the end of my 2nd year class one of the shyest girls - who always sat throughout class with her head down, staring at her desk approached me and offered me half the piece of candy I had given her for being part of the group that came up with the best questions.

I'd like to think I made at least a small difference in these students' lives - perhaps our time together has encouraged them to study more English or inspired them to travel abroad. I do know that visiting Gaeun each Friday and teaching their classes was typically the highlight of my week which was at times fraught with difficult classes at MTHS.

As I was leaving the high school I encountered a student, the one who had texted me the night before, and we chatted as we walked down the hill towards my bus stop. After we said goodbye I turned on my mp3 player and waited for the bus - until I heard the sound of running footsteps on the pavement and looked up to see her coming back towards me holding an apple in one hand. She handed me the apple, said thank you and good bye one last time and then ran off to catch her own bus. A final act of kindness from one of many incredible students.

As the end of my contract drew closer my co-teachers, Mr. Min asked if I could join him and Mr. Kim for a farewell dinner - to thank me for my hard work at Mungyeong Technical High School.

So on Thursday they took me out to eat at a local traditional restaurant on the edge of Jeomchon. To my delight I realized that they had ordered a vegetarian set menu so I could enjoy a variety of delicious dishes including tofu, seaweed, steamed rice and rice cakes.

While we ate we chatted about school and my co-teachers, in somewhat typical Korean bluntness, shared some of their thoughts about the previous year. They told me that some of the students will miss me but only some because there were a few that didn't like my classes however, they were, in the words of Mr. Kim "the troublemakers".

I certainly understood what they were saying - there definitely are students at MTHS that won't miss me - I didn't allow them to disrupt my class to the detriment of other students learning and that certainly didn't endure me to them. However, I do think that many students didn't mind my classes and a few might have even enjoyed them.

Both men also complimented my lessons which I really appreciated - I worked very hard on them and I'm happy to hear that experienced teachers felt that they were beneficial to the students. Mr. Kim had even asked for a copy of many of my lessons so that he could use them in the future.

After dinner I said my good-byes to both teachers and thanked them for their help during my time at MTHS. I think we have all learned from our experience working together.

My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life - either from the previous week or something or someone about which I've been thinking. A simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

If you've read previous posts in my blog you might know already that Mungyeong is famous for a little red berry called omija. This berry is known for having 5 tastes and is heavily promoted throughout the series of towns in Mungyeong-si in a variety of ways - omija juice, candy and alcohol.

In recent years Mungyeong organized an annual omija festival to further promote it's well-known berry. The festival is held in the small town of Dongno-myeon which is approximately a 40 minute bus ride from Jeomchon.

This festival has a similar set-up to most other festivals throughout Korea - there are food tents, random stalls selling either nick-knacks or natural remedies and a stage on which a variety of performances are given.

A small group of us went to the festival and wandered around for an hour or so. We tried a few omija products, were followed around excessively by a cameraman (read my "Quirky Korea" entry below) and then waited for an hour for the next bus back to Jeomchon.

Below are a few photos from the festival