Pottery Picnic

As some of you may know I have been taking yoga here in Gwangju for about a month. The yoga in our studio here is much different than any practice I did back home. There isn't much English spoken in class, big surprise, but the benefits have been incredible. More on that in another blog.

Thursday in yoga class, my sunsangnem (teacher, the one on the right) said, picnic, 10 Oclock Sunday. So I showed up this morning with Maryanne's homemade potato salad and Nicole's awesome cream cheese dip ready to go. Our teacher, her two amazing Korean students, another wonderful Korean who spoke English and 4 of us foreigners packed into two cars and headed out into the country, about halfway between Hwasan and Bosong. We made a left hand turn down a windy road and found ourselves among lots of farm land. We had traveled to her pottery teacher's home. His name was Muil.

Muil's home was rustic and made out of natural wood up on the side of a wooded hill. He had a ton of windows overlooking the farmland. It was one of the most rustic and scenic sights I have seen yet. Muil also had an outdoor kiln and tons of pottery lined the walls of his studio/home.

We had lunch first and it was great to have our translater, (good god I wish i could remember names, she was great) It was a nice mix of Korean and American dishes, we had Ramen, Kimchi, Gimbap and rice cakes along with pasta salad, pumpkin bread and mandu(dumplings) tons of hot tea poured from Muil's handmade tea pots into our own mugs.

After lunch we got to work. While Sunsangnem and Ptuktuk worked on the pottery wheels, the 4 of us foreigners made three different types of flower vases. Currently they are drying and will be put in Muil's kiln. I believe he is going to glaze them for us, fire them again and next week we can pick them up. It was a very relaxing day and now, I want to take pottery classes along with my yoga.