Happy Lunar New Year

Well, looks like this blog is more of a once-a-month thing than the frequency I had planned. And I think it's way into Google searches, judging by the number of page views.  Kind of trips me out knowing there are some random strangers reading the random crap I write.

Anyway, what new adventures can I write about today?  Today is the Korean Lunar New Year, but I don't know enough about it to write about it.  Plus, oftentimes I find those "cultural insights" people write on their blogs (after their great understanding that comes with living here a couple of months) really preachy and obnoxious.  So, I won't write any of that today.  Instead, I will dig through my bank of low quality cellphone photos for inspiration!

Have I put up pictures of my school?  Last month, I realized that the hiking trail I frequented in warmer times goes the other direction, too.  In fact, it leads to a lovely little hill that gives a fantastic view of my school:  

 

I love my tiny little park. These little outdoor exercise areas are everywhere in Korea.  Most of the machines don't seem to make a lot of sense, but they're still fun to play on.  There's also a tiny field that seems to be reserved exclusively for grandparents playing croquet.

 
A few weeks ago, I experienced my first snow day.  I woke up, thinking I was going to be late, and happened to see some snow falling through the uncovered part of the window.  I wasn't too thrilled about the idea of walking through the snow to work, but once I was in it, was ridiculously excited. I waded in knee deep snow to my school.  Now I can legitimately tell possible future grandchildren how I walked uphill in the snow to get to school, and they should be grateful for their amazing virtual reality school.  Once I arrived (finally) at school, it dawned on me that no one else was there, and, oh shit, maybe they cancel school when all the roads are blocked overnight by 14 inches of snow?  So I had a surprise day off.
 

I mentioned in my last post that I had taken a plunge and decided to get LASEK in Korea (where it's half the cost it is in the US).  Well, I have to say it's totally amazing to have 20/20 vision without corrective lenses!  I am really glad I did it.  Last month, I went for my first monthly checkup, and had a bit of entertainment in Seoul.  

First of all, though I do not recommend the jimjilbang (public bathhouse/sleeping accommodations) at the Express Terminal in Seoul, I do recommend the Krispy Kreme.  I know, what an odd, sad, Western thing to suggest.  Going to Western fast food chains and seeing how they're different is one of my favorite guilty pleasures when traveling.  Krispy Kreme is excellent for this.  I'm not a huge fan in the US, and think of them as a cheap, crappy place to buy basic glazed donuts to bring to work. Here, though, Krispy Kreme is luxurious.  They have the fanciest donuts I have ever seen, including New York cheesecake donuts, blueberry cheesecake, Toblerone donuts...you get the idea.  I tried the blueberry cheesecake donut.  Although it did taste like it'd been in that display case for a while, it was pretty tasty.  I also got a mocha nut coffee.  Somehow, I still managed to be surprised that it contained actual nuts, although I was warned in the name.  I recommend it!

My other great adventure that weekend was Dr. Fish!  Although I think you can find a few of these places in the US, they're not exactly common.  I was determined to try it here.  So, after a little internet research, I found a cafe that offered it.  It seems to me there are a ridiculous number of strange cafes in Korea. 

Basically, you pay a couple thousand won extra (after buying a drink) to stick your feet in a tank of water with these fish.  In theory, the fish eat all the dead skin off your feet, leaving them super soft.  In actuality, they mostly just tickled and provided laugh therapy.  I don't think these fish have had any podiatry training at all.  I kept laughing like a complete nutcase almost the entire time.  After about half an hour, someone came and told me my time was up and my drink was ready.  I kind of felt like there actually wasn't a time limit, and they just wanted the obnoxious foreigner to shut the **** up, but it's not like I was gonna dangle my feet in there all day anyway.

In addition to the joys of fishy foot nibbles, their honey and cinnamon latte was amazing.  They also offer free bread.  So it would be kind of an awesome cafe even minus the Dr. Fish part.

The little fish were tickly and fun, the big fish...I don't think anyone could tolerate these fellows without shrieking.  I couldn't leave my feet in, the tickling was too much.  Never thought 2 inch long fish could seem so enormous.

That was my fun for last month.  This month so far I have taken my first train in Korea.  This one goes along the sea, and while it's not as fast as the bullet trains in other parts of the country, was still a fun ride.

Oh, and I went back to Penis Park in Samcheok.  No lewd photos this time, but I actually went into the fishing museum, which was quite nice.  Nothing like some nice statues and dioramas to learn about mythology and history.

  

 

So, I hope that this post will keep my fans satisfied for this month.  I'm off to Thailand this weekend, then school starts back up at the beginning of next month.

And for your viewing entertainment, I have made a blog to share the joy and humor of Konglish:
http://konglishwisdom.tumblr.com/

Love Motels and Animal Cafes

I continue to be awful about updating this blog.  Part of it is that I'm not sure what is interesting to people back home, and the rest of it is that I'm just really lazy about writing! 

Life is full of up and downs, but Korea was still the right choice for me.  Of course, it's harder during the holidays, but I still had a good time.  Thank you to all of my family and friends reading this who went through the trouble and expense of mailing me things during the holidays, it made me feel so special!

I've done a lot, but most of it doesn't seem worth the trouble of writing about and/or involves lots of alcohol drinking and other things inappropriate for this audience.

I went to a dog cafe (full of dogs for petting, not for eating) and a cat cafe (same deal with cats) in Seoul.  Then, to my utter joy, a dog cafe opened in Donghae a couple weeks ago!  Normally these are a big city thing, so this practically made me pee myself with excitement.  This one is small (only has 3 permanent dogs), but it's one of my two favorite places in Donghae.  Two of the dogs are puppies.  One, the dalmation (Mini) basically lives on my lap when I'm there.  I feel like the other people are giving me jealous looks, but when I put him down he always comes back to nap, so it's his choice!

Last week I took a plunge and got LASEK!  It's a lot cheaper here than in the States (Korea's medical tourism is booming).  My eyesight is still kind of blurry, but I'm hoping it will continue to improve.

The most entertaining part of that was that DREAM Eye Center paid for a motel for the night.  Now, most motels in Korea are "classy" affairs that are often referred to as "Love Motels."  A lot of younger people live with their parents until they get married, so there's a demand for a little privacy sometimes for couples.   It was a four story building.  We were on the fifth floor.  This is because 4 is an unlucky number (the word also means "death") here, so like some places in the US omit the 13th floor, some places here omit the 4th floor. 

The gentleman at the desk insisted on giving us a small pack of toiletries.  How nice!  Further inspection later revealed the contents of the toiletry packet to be 2 toothbrushes, a disposable razor, a couple of condoms and a couple small packets of douche.  Neither of us ladies felt the need for a douche, although my friend may have taken the condoms for later, just in case. ;-) No lube though, how thoughtless.  The bathroom door was this fancy thing:

Nothing says five star accommodations like nudity in a semi-transparent bathroom door.

The room itself wasn't that bad...no view and small, but the bed was big and comfortable (no surprise) and there was a mini-fridge, television and computer.

The contents of the television were an amusing surprise.  Pornography is pretty regulated in Korea, so we were shocked and entertained to find that many channels consisted of (apparently really poor quality) pornography.  My favorite was the semi-naked lady rubbing a squid on herself.  Not a joke, apparently someone somewhere associated SQUIDS with sex and decided to put it on film.

Now that I've shocked and horrified relatives, former and future co-workers and friends' parents, I shall go rest my bleary eyes.

<3 to all.

A Short Summary of Many Happy Weekends

So I just realized how very much I haven't written.  I've been busy and lazy, so I'll try to do a quick and dirty catch up for the two people still reading...

So, October 6th, I met Jon, a new buddy in Korea.  I was wandering down the street on a Saturday, when out of nowhere this Asian guy asks me, "Do you speak English?" He arrived the week before and hadn't met anyone who spoke English.  So we spent the afternoon hanging out, then introduced him to several people and had dinner with them.  And now I know one of the most awesome people in Korea!

We had quite a nice week in mid October at school.  Every school in Korea has its own holiday where it celebrates its founding.  Ours for some reason involved a student drag show.

I don't really get it, but it was hilarious.  The day after, we had sports day.  It was a bit of fun watching the kids compete against each other.  I also had my first sweet potato pizza, which was surprisingly delicious-the school asked the other teachers if they wanted kimbap or pizza, but for the Americans, they just figured we would want pizza.  For the record, Korean pizza is not very much like American pizza. After lunch, Allison was very sad that the teachers did not participate like she thought.  So they offered to let us run in the team obstacle race.  Allison and I were the last runners on each team.  Instead of a baton, we had to put on a long skirt, run, spin around 10 times, pop a balloon with our hips, vault over a wall, and drink something nasty, which turned out to be vinegar. DO NOT EVER DRINK VINEGAR! That was an unpleasant experience, but at least we amused some kids.  Afterward, we went downstairs to the range and I impressed myself with how fair a shot I am.

As I wrote in my last posts, I had an awesome birthday weekend.  The next weekend (the 21st), Jon and I and Jimmy (from the conversation club) went to Gangneung for an international food festival.  The festival was a bit disappointing, but we did manage to nab some half decent tacos.  We also all tried and loved bamboo tea.  After that, we wandered for a good, long while trying to find a certain coffee museum.  We eventually found it.  No one had been able to give us good directions because it was out in the middle of nowhere.  It was a fun trip though.

The next weekend (last weekend of October), I went to Busan, one of the largest cities in Korea, for a fireworks festival.  I had a rough time finding my hostel, but once I did it was pretty decent.  The next morning, I found my way to a giant shopping mall and poked about there for a while.  I also went to an art museum.  I was pretty crushed that the fireworks got canceled due to rain, but I met up with some friends from orientation and drank and danced my troubles away for several hours.  That was probably one of the best workouts I've had since coming here.

Last weekend, I went out to a 노래방(noraebang, or singing room) with Jon. Then we went to Gangneung again the morning after and met some amazing new friends there (some of whom he knew from his orientation with EPIK).  We had an action packed day of brunch, shopping, beach walking, dinner, drinks and more noraebang!  Then I stayed at my new friend's place there, because the last bus had already left.  On Sunday morning, we went to nearby Samcheok city to see Haeshindang Park...a park full of penis statues.  Unfortunately, I ended up missing the conversation club's Halloween party, but it was a great time getting pictures that will prevent us from running for political office in the future.

This weekend, just to catch us up all the way, I met a new buddy named Ashley.  She met Jon in a similar way to how he met me.  After being bereft of English speaking company for two weeks, Jon met and befriended her in a convenience store. So on Friday night, I got to meet her and walk around a bit, then we met Jon and headed to a friend's birthday dinner.  That was followed by a visit to the local ex-pat hotspot, where we hung out for a bit.  After they left, the remainder of us headed to a noraebang across the street. Although I liked the karaoke in Gangneung better, it's always fun to make an ass of oneself singing with others.

 

 Saturday morning I woke up and met Ashley, Edel (from Gangneung) and two of her friends, and we went for a hike in Meurang Valley.

 

So, all in all, it's been an adventure filled few weeks full of fun having and friend making.  School's still a bit tough, but life in Korea is pretty great, and that makes it pretty darn bearable.

K-Pop and Picnics

Last weekend, I got to experience a K-pop (Korean pop music) concert for free.  There were 7 different bands/artists performing to raise awareness for the upcoming Olympics games.  We had really awesome seats pretty close to the stage.  I don't know too much about Korean bands, but judging by the teenage screaming, some of them were quite popular.

The next day (my birthday!) I went to Murang (that's probably the wrong spelling) Valley with my English Conversation Club.  My friend told me about the club, which is for people who want to practice English.  I was very excited, because I really wanted to make some Korean friends. 

Last weekend was my second time going, and instead of meeting at the library, we went on an excursion to the valley.  We hiked a bit, then had a picnic.

After the picnic, we hiked back down and drove to this...place.  Not exactly a cafe, but this place you can go and make coffee and tea and put money for it in a box.  I think it is near a monastery, because a monk came down and gave us rice cakes.

My friend Joyce:

 Jimmy (our group leader) making tea:

Gwilym and "Kim" enjoying their drinks:

Outside there were some of the weirdest looking chickens I've seen:

"Jennifer," one of the Korean members is a music teacher, and she gave Joyce, Gwilym and me practice versions of the traditional Korean short flute.  I mostly failed miserably at producing sound, but it was still an awesome gift!

So my birthday weekend was pretty amazing.

Donghae Festival

So, it's been a couple weeks and I want to do at least one update before I go to sleep.  I'm really tired though.  Solution: lots of pictures and a few words.  So, here we go:

Last weekend was pretty cool.  There was a festival in Donghae.  Festivals are seriously abundant in Korea.  For the most part, it's food and shopping and a little entertainment.  Donghae had a nice enough sized one considering what a small town Donghae is. 

Here it is, illustrated:

Getting wasted on soju during the middle of the day is a required festival activity.  Dancing with the performers may or may not be optional.

 

Can you spot the drunk people jamming with the band?!

Mmmmm...Korean street food.  Corn dog-esque things are pretty popular here.  In addition to adding ketchup and mustard, they're usually also rolled in sugar. Yum!

At a balloon game, the operator brought his dog.  I just think Korean dog fashion is hilarious, so here's a purple eared dog:

There was this cool tent with money from all over the world.  I wish I could have read what it was about, but at least there were pretty things to look at.

Performance at the festival-I couldn't see much, because there was quite a crowd, but apparently drag comedy routines are a huge hit here.

So, now I'm quite sleepy and lazy, so I'll just publish these for your enjoyment.  Still to come: K-pop concert pictures, picnic in the mountains scenes, school festival, school sports day and festivals in Gangneung.  Stay tuned!

My Chuseok in Seoul

I'm lazy and blog posts take time, so sorry for the late update.

The last couple weeks have been easy school wise, as we had midterms then a vacation.

So last week I had several days off for the Korean holiday of Chuseok. It's sort of like Korean Thanksgiving, when Koreans go back to their hometowns, eat with their families and honor their ancestors.  And foreigners have lovely vacations! I decided to go to Seoul for the first time.  The city empties out a lot for the holiday and there are a ton of foreigners coming in, so it was a fun time.

Here's the synopsis of my vacation in Seoul. I got there Friday afternoon, and it was pouring rain.

That was amusing, as I'd not packed my umbrella or rain jacket after looking at the weather report.

So I bought a new umbrella, and I made it to the subway. Unfortunately, I did not look closely at the map, as I got off at the wrong subway stop. So, I decided to take a taxi. I was trying to figure out where to wave one down, when one just stopped in the middle of the street and yelled to me. Koreans tend to be super nice, but this was the first taxi driver that attempted to engage in conversation (probably because it was the first taxi driver who spoke decent English). He spoke decent English, so eventually we got to my hostel.

It was a really nice hostel, although not a lot of Westerners from what I saw. The owners were super fluent in English. I was in a 4 bed room, but I was the only one in there, so essentially I had a private room for about 20 dollars a night!

Once I settled in a bit, figured no one was around yet, I decided to explore. I went looking for the dog cafe, which turned out to be a short, very walkable distance away!That was fun. I sat around in a room full of dogs, drinking delicious coffee and bribing dogs to love me with treats.

So after that I went back to my hostel and turned in early-ish.

Then I got up in the morning and traveled for like an hour on the subway to get to the outskirts of Seoul and meet somebody so I could take over her cell phone contract. So I met her and then her Korean friend so that we can transfer the contract. After driving around a bit, we discover this cannot be done on the weekend.

Oops.

So in a leap of mutual stranger trust, she gave me the phone, and I gave her a copy of my relevant information so they could do it over the phone when she came back from Vietnam.

And then I had a phone! So marvelous to no longer have to make eye contact or interact in real life again. Then I went back to the hostel with my prize to play a bit.

After I had set up my phone a bit, I went to Itaewon, which is a neighborhood of Seoul that's basically the foreigner district. There is lots of shopping for Western bodies and Western food of every flavor. There, I partook of my favorite guilty travel pleasure: McDonalds.

I like to go to Mickey D's in other countries and order their unusual foods.

So I had a bulgogi burger, which was delicious.

Then I walked around enjoying the sights a bit, and got in contact with someone I knew vaguely from orientation who was coming to Seoul. We were going to meet and go to Outback, but I was traveling on the subway, and I didn't realize how long it took to get where they were...almost an hour.

So by the time I got there, I realized I had to go back.

I had bought a ticket to see Wicked. So although I was a bit frustrated from wasting two hours and still being alone, I went back and saw Wicked, which was awesome. I loved the music, so I was excited to finally see the play.

I was going to try to meet people afterward, but I had a terrible headache/neckache that was about to give me serious nausea. I went to bed instead. On Sunday when I got up, I managed to connect with my project partner from orientation to meet him. He was up earlier than all his friends, because he hadn't been drinking the night before. So we hung out a bit, walked around, then went back to his hostel to see if other people were up.

We hung out a while waiting for other people to get up. Eventually a few got up/returned

so Michael and I went with them to walk around and find lunch. They wanted to go do other stuff, so Michael and I ended up going and doing historical stuff by ourselves anyway. We went to a shrine, which was nice, although not that interesting, then to a traditional village. We walked around and did some sightseeing thereand ran into all the people from the hostel, now slightly recovered.

Afterward, we went to an Indian restaurant for dinner.  One of the people from Busan said it was voted the best Indian restaurant in Seoul.  I'm not a connoisseur, so I don't know.  It was good, and nice to eat something that's not really available in Donghae.  Afterward, we went out for a few drinks and dancing, including the most crowded club I'd ever seen.

On Monday, I met up with my cousin.  He just got stationed near Seoul.  So he managed to escape from his army duties to go sightseeing with me.  We went to an awesome palace and folk museum.

 After that, we went in search of food.  To tide us over while we wandered around, I decided to try some street food.  So we had some tasty squid, walked around a festival then I decided to try these tasty critters.  We were pretty sure they were bugs.  And I'm lying, they weren't tasty.  Thumbs down.  Definitely not the tastiest insects I've ever had.

The area we were in didn't have many restaurants, so we went back to Itaewon.  Dustin wanted some authentic Korean, so after some wandering and sneaking out of a restaurant when we looked at the menu prices, we found a nice little hole in the wall Korean restaurant in an alley.  We had some delicious bibimbap, then went to the English language bookstore.  Of course, I wanted to buy every book there, but contented myself with a magazine, seeing how I already have dozens of books unread on my Kindle.  Afterward we parted ways.

So, that was the most exciting part of my Chuseok, and further news can wait til the next blog post.