So close, but so far...

Possibly the most disappointing thing happened to me this past weekend.

I play on two soccer teams here, one with all Koreans the other mostly foreigners. The foreign team is for a competitive league that travels the Seoul area to play. I like the team a lot and have a lot of fun, even if I'm not that great of a player.

Anyway, this past weekend we went to Osan. It took about hour and a half to get there and we were playing on the US Air Force base located there. While warming up, a group needed to use the bathroom which meant exploring the hallway of one of the dorms. We spotted a vending machine with plenty of American goodies. They included Doritos, Ritz Bits, normal Cheetos, and most importantly REESE'S!!!!!! However, this quickly turned awful...

On the vending I noticed a small sign that read "accepts American money." That was the first oh shit moment. The prices were also in American dollars. I immediately started to freak. I took out the Korean equivalent of a dollar bill and tried to jam it in. No luck. My friend flattened the bill. I tried again. Still nothing. I started screaming in pain from being so close to my long lost love but not getting to enjoy it. We had to go back. Such a hard goodbye. (ㅠ.ㅠ)

Baseball Fever!

For the majority of my life, I have hated baseball. The sport is so slow, there are so many games in a season, and there is no excitement or enthusiasm at most games. It took a trip around the world to change my mind. I have found a new love for the American pastime all the way over in Korea.

There are some major differences between American (MLB) and Korean baseball (KBO). First difference is the number of teams. MLB has 30 teams. In my eyes, this means not only do I need to follow my team, but also have basic knowledge of the 29 others. With the long and fast moving season, keeping track of league leaders, conference standings, and player statistics. KBO has only eight teams. This makes following the league much easier. The number of things to focus on is cut in thirds.

The next major difference is the skill level. MLB players are great players. They hit, run, field, and pitch well. KBO players are not so quality. However this changes the way the game is played. First, each team is allowed two or three foreign players, who are always pitchers (haven't seen any who aren't pitchers yet). The pitchers are not of great quality. They often have trouble hitting the strike zone consistently, but batters do make the most of it. However, the batters are not great either. Stats near the end of the season were pretty sad. Most had batting averages in the low .200s with rarely finding a batter with 20 home runs. This sounds awful, but this means all players have to adjust. Yes, it is a huge treat when you see a home run, but the players are mainly trying to just get on base. Once on base they try to advance runners by bunts and steals. Once in scoring position, they will swing again to drive the man home. It is very tactically oriented. American baseball may also have tactics, but I have not seen it as clearly as I have seen here, nor is it as interesting.

The skill level leads to the final major difference, which is the enthusiasm of the fans. Since any hit, out, bunt, sacrifice makes the team one step closer to scoring, the crowd goes nuts on EVERY play. Each batter has chants, cheers, and songs. Everyone in the stands knows the choreography and words and tunes and everything about how to be a good fan. It is basically like a very tame version of soccer fans. It really pumps me up and gets me into the game.

My team in KBO is the KIA Tigers for obvious reasons. They play in Gwangju (southern South Korea, 3.5 hour bus from Seoul). Over Korean thanksgiving, I went down to see a game at their home stadium. It was a great time. I've seen them three times live. It was a lot of fun every time. I even know a number of the players names. Cha-il-mok, Na-Ji-won, I-young-gyu, Sosa, Anthony, An-Ji-hong, Kim-seon-bin, Pak-gi-nam. Maybe this enthusiasm will help me get into MLB when I return home. Go Tigers! Both Korean and American!

Welcome Back!

So I know it has been a long time since I have posted on this, but instead of updating everyone on the adventures I have had, including but not limited to my family visit, China vacation, Osakan adventures, Busan bonanza, I have been inspired to write about something much more mundane. My shower.

If you tuned into my apartment tour in February, you can see how small my bathroom is. With the shower head over my sink and lack of decent water pressure or temperature, I have had lots of trouble enjoying my showers. The shower head can barely push water out of it, which means I have to lean over my sink in order to get hit by the water stream. Instead, I generally just hold the hose in my hand to rinse and then return the head either to the sink or the holder while I lather and rinse. Also, I have difficulty holding a steady or comfortable temperature. My water heater quite possibly has bipolar disorder. I rarely find the right temperature, and when I do, it normally stays for maybe 20 seconds. There are also residual effects of the shower. Since it is not cordoned off, everything in the bathroom gets wet and stays wet. Hours later, I'll return from work with a wet bathroom floor, forcing me to tiptoe around the small puddles.

Those of you who know me well, are aware of how much I enjoy showers. I have even shared my design for my dream shower with several people. So dealing with these lackluster showers has been a real drag.

However, in the past week I have spent a whopping $3 and have revolutionized my showering experience! 

First purchase was an incense kit from Daiso for the extreme price of $1! Now this is not usually a bathroom item, but I have had a cold for a while and started taking very steam filled showers to help clear everything out. I decided one day to take my incense in there to burn in the steam and it was definitely the right choice. That definitely raised my spirits.

My second purchase was a $2 shower head holder, which I have been looking everywhere for. I have spent 8 months searching for one. Finally, in EMart, Korea's version of Target, except four stories and more expensive, I found one! Now on the other wall I can hang the shower head and not lean over my sink. It was a magical experience.

Now all I need is an opportunity or excuse to enjoy a shower beer and I think I can turn this shower predicament around!

Seoul Arts Center

So I did not have the greatest start to my Saturday. I woke up early expecting to have an athletically filled day. I was intending to go into Seoul to play touch rugby. I have become obsessed with rugby in the past few years. I have wanted to play for a while so I was pretty excited to play touch instead of full contact because I would likely be broken in half if I played contact. However, when I woke up and checked the Facebook event to see the best way to get to the field, only to find that the event was cancelled due to rain. I was pretty disappointed. So I needed to reevaluate the day.

I had time to do that since the Red Wings were playing. The series was quite disappointing. The refs were awful at all points, the Wings were not able to play their game, and Nashville did play pretty well. Still the day continued to flatten as the Wings season was put to an end.

During the game I looked through a tour book and found a museum that sounded interesting, The Seoul Arts Center, so I decided I would check it out. I looked at the website and saw they had concerts and art so I thought I would try to see a show if it was not too expensive. Since there was a potential to go to a classical concert, I decided I should dress up, so I wore a shirt and tie with dress pants, fancier than anything I wore all week (thank you middle school break). So off to Seoul I went.

I was pretty hungry when I arrived in Seoul, so after locating the Museum, my first stop was to find some food. I followed some Koreans who seemed to be headed there from the station. The complex was HUGE! You could see it from two blocks away and that is impressive considering how packed Seoul is. The main building is very beautiful from the outside, modeled after a traditional Korean hat. I took the street leading away from it to find a restaurant. I ended up finding a 돈까수 (Dongasu) restaurant that was really good. Dongasu is fried cutlet of some sort, usually pork. I love fried food, but dongasu normally has a weird BBQ-ish sauce which I am not a huge fan of, but this place had another option of a horseradishy sauce which was delicious. It really matched the fried flavor well.

I then went to the museum to find out about a show for that evening. I talked with a woman at the desk and found that a ticket for that night’s symphony was only $20! Not only that, but I got a first row seat! Yes, it was all the way to the end, but it was still a great location, but more on that later. I had 4 hours to kill before the performance.

So I went to the art museum on the complex. The first floor was roped off for a contemporary art fair which had an admission fee so I decided I would walk up the stairs to see if they had any permanent free exhibits since I just bought food and symphony tickets. So I start walking through the exhibits on the upper floor. It takes a bit of time, but I realize that I had snuck into the same exhibit that is on the main floor. I decided to keep looking at this floor and then go back down and pay once I finished. There were a TON of great artists. I will put a list at the bottom of the post with my favorites from the show.

I went back down to the first floor to pay for the ticket and see the artists on the first floor. There were some pieces which literally blew me away. There were two artists who used sand on canvas to make their art. They would darken the sand with paints or something to make designs like footsteps or rocks or water. It was really incredible. While at another booth, the artist came up and started talking to me. She asked what I thought about her work and I was honest and said I really liked it. She came back and gave me a thick, hardcover book with her work and a bunch of writing in it (in Korean). I was really thankful. There were plenty of others who were friendly and nice in helping me out and asking questions. Koreans can be the friendliest people if they want to. I don’t think you would ever get this kind of respect and help in the states.

I’ll go in depth about two more, who were by far my favorites of the show. The first used a medium I had never seen before. He made portraits of people but the way he made them was fascinating. The canvas was covered with plastic cylinders of the same color that were all cut at angles. Based on the way the angle was pointed, the more light would be caught or reflect off of it, making the portrait. You could walk back and forth and still see the picture; it would just change the darkness of the picture.

The last artist I will talk about was by far the coolest thing in the exhibit. The artist (Her Mi-Hei, 허미회) made these shadowboxes. It had two levels, each with transparent pictures on them. Some were the same picture twice, some were different pictures from the same place. The one that I liked best was from two vantage points along river in Strasburg, France. The two pictures were down river from each other. The way the two overlapped was so interesting. I literally spent 15 minutes looking at the piece at one point. It just was encapsulating. I have never seen a more attractive piece of art.

So that was the art. I ate a quick sandwich before heading to the show. The concert hall was beautiful. My seat was very offset so I did not have a great view of the symphony, which was actually the Korean Symphony Orchestra, but it is more about listening anyway. The first set was very good. They played something that had almost a Latin feel with a special guest harpist. It was really cool. The second set was not quite as good, nodded off once or twice for ten seconds, but it was still great music. Both encores, the harpist after set 1 and the whole symphony after set 2, were songs I recognized which was really cool. I’m not well enough versed in music to know what they were, but it was very cool.

Now the list of artists

Best of the Best

허미회, Her Mi-Hei – The shadow box artist (look at Artist of the Month Feb 2010)
윤용욱, Yun Yong-Wook – Cylinder portraits

Kim Yang-Sook – The artist who gave me her book, mainly flowers and nature in bright colors

박진영, Park Jin-Young – Interesting use of cardboard and paints to make trees
전태원, Jeon Tae-Won – Cool work with paper mache on canvas with flowers (Link is to a picture that was not my favorite but can give some perspective on style)

인동욱, In Dong-Wook – Modern art of buildings with bright colors
김창영, Kim Chang-Young – One of the sand artists
김주호, Kim Ju-Ho – beautiful paintings of birds (Second picture on the page)

김용중, Kim Yong-Joong – One of the sand artists

Kim Ga-Beom – Modern artist with bright colors of mainly scenery

Honorable Mentions

Park Hyun-Ok – Still life of flower pots, amazing use of paint sticking off of the canvas

Jang Se-Il – Interesting sculptures
김경렬, Kim Kyeong-Ryeol – Funny artist who made paintings of people riding bikes, like Abe Lincoln as if he were in the Tour de France
안병석, Ahn Byeong-Seok – Interesting work with lines and plants
윤기원, Yoon Gi-Won – Cartoon faces with bright colors
김정미, Kim Jeong-Mi – Paintings of faces of different colors
주은희, Joo Eun-Hee – Scenic paintings

Finding pictures or websites of not-so-famous Korean artists has been a pain. I tried to get most of the best of the best, but half of their names are shared with a famous actor, actress, or sports star. Enjoy what I have shared.

Not Quite Weekly Update from Last Week... Week of April 1st

Last Sunday I went for a short run. While out on my run, I passed by the high school. There is a dirt field in front and I saw a bunch of Ajoshis (young to middle aged men) playing soccer. I stood by the field coyly and wait for someone to invite me to play. They called me onto the field and I played for an hour or so. They told me to come back the following Sunday. Which I did. I am now a part of the Sutnae team. We have legit jerseys. They are Argentina jerseys with the team name on it. I’m number 51. We also ate lunch after the game on Sunday. Looking forward to more days of soccer! I have now played on 5 of 7 continents around the world. Australia and Antarctica remain.

So now back to the previous Sunday. We also had a visitor arrive that day. Erin, my coworker Amanda’s cousin came to visit. She just finished the Peace Corp in Africa! Her visit was a lot of fun. I got to hear all sorts of stories about South Africa and compare them with Kim’s stories and my short experience in Cameroon. We ventured through Seoul Grant Park, which has many parts. We stuck to the zoo. The weather started off nice but cooled down quite a bit. The zoo was nice, but I have realized I do not really like them that much. The captive animals were very depressing. Also the cages were very small compared to ones you see in the states, but I guess that is Asia.

Picture break!

Largest bear I have ever seen!

These were headed down the tram as we were headed up. Odd...

View of the Amusement Park on the other side of the lake from the lift cars.

Captive Jaguar pacing.

Erin (Former-PCV) and Amanda (Current HR) on the lift. This took you all the way into the zoo.

Monday morning was the first Shmooze Alumni Organization meeting. Although I met many people for the first time, I had an amazing time sharing stories about Korea and hearing and learning about all of them! I really enjoy the hangouts and they work very conveniently. I’m trying to implement them with other groups as well!

On Wednesday, we had a cute little visitor. She was a baby sister of one of the students, or so I was guessing. She was SOOOO cute! She kept running in and out of the office. I would always wave at her and make silly faces. She then would run out but kept on returning. Eventually, I was not paying attention and was dancing at my seat like I normally do. She snuck up and high fived me! She ran away again and again. Finally, we got her attention with a laser pointer! We shone it around and she was entranced! It was so much fun, until her brother came and took her away! Video posted here.

Thursday I had to go to Immigration to replace my Alien Registration Card, basically my Korean form of ID. I always have way too much in my pockets, and that is part of the reason why I lost it in the first place. While on the trip, I lost my iPod. I got really worked up about it when I realized I lost it. It makes my life a lot easier because I can get maps and translate things and keep in contact with friends here and at home. I called Mr Jung, a VP at the school and who drove us to Immigration, to see if it fell out of my pocket and I heard him say it wasn’t there. I searched online for the phone number of the building we went to. Their website was awful and had a lot of problems with links but I finally called and talked with someone but it was not found. I rationalized it and decided it was not a problem. Then when I walk in, Mr Jung walks up to me and hands my iPod back to me. I was so relieved and confused, but glad I had my lifeline to the world back.

Friday marked the beginning of Passover. Due to work, I could not go to or host a Seder, but I started observing that night. I did give myself rice for the week considering there was no way to avoid rice while in Asia. Otherwise I kept it as true as possible.

I did go to a Seder at Chabbad for the second night. What a fun story that was so look for it in the next post!

Weekly Update, March 30th

So I decided on Monday to try to take notes on different things that might be blog-worthy throughout the week to try to force myself to write more to keep you updated and to remind myself what I did and some of the funny stories when I start to age. So let’s see how week one of note taking went. (Thanks to the Finn Family for a beautiful journal to write in, it still smells new)

Monday was a very eventful day. It was my first project day with my cute little first graders. I have been on an origami kick recently (thanks Asia…) and decided to make origami gerbils and gerbil cages because the central part of the book we finished was about a class gerbil. The projects turned out really cool! Stupid me, I did not take any pictures except of Christina when she pretended her shoebox/future cage was a computer.

Another class that I really like has given me a Korean name. We read a story about a girl who has somewhat of an identity crisis because she is not called by her full name (called Mary Lopez instead of Maria Isabel Salazar Lopez). So I asked the students if they liked their Korean names or English names better and they all said they liked their Korean names. I also talked about how in the US I would be Mr. Peven instead of Matthew Teacher. I also for some reason wrote my middle name, Todd, on the board. When I told them they needed to give me a Korean name, they instantly knew what to name me 킴도꺼비 (Kim DuKoBi). I was kind of petrified they had given me a curse word as a name, but on Monday they drew a picture for me with a toad on it and wrote it next to my name so I found out my name means Kim Toad. I laughed. It was very cute and funny.

Tuesday was another phenomenal day. It started with an unexpected invitation to a Google Hangout from Avery Robinson. After a short chat with him and Ian, I was brought into the light of the situation that the premise was actually the first ever international schmooze leadership committee meeting. I tried to explain it to my friends, but I don’t think any of them got the full gist of how happy I was and how enjoyable the meeting was. I really cannot explain in words what happened or how much fun it was. Marshall, Avery, and Ian really made my day!

In one of my speaking classes, I ended up getting off topic for a minute. We started talking K-Pop. I have a recent obsession with the band BIGBANG (Link for my favorite song). They have really catchy music and good singers (there are some crazy ones in the group, but just ignore them). One of the girls in the class started freaking out because she loves the band too. She said she went to one of their concerts and got a hug from one of the guys, TOP (I think he is weird, he dyed his hair baby blue). She said she was like a squid after the show which was probably the weirdest description of a feeling I have ever heard.

On Wednesday night for dinner, I got a rotisserie chicken. This may sound weird, but a few nights a week, a truck parks on the corner of our school and sells rotisserie chickens out of the back. Korea is known for its convenience and street food, so this combines both into a nice package. You also buy them in sets of three for TEN BUCKS! It is a great deal! It also tastes really great! Only drawback is that you eat it like a caveman and your hands are covered in grease and oil while wearing work clothes. Not a great combination.

On Thursday in the same speaking class as mentioned previously, I was doing a lesson around schools. I had asked the students what was their favorite and least favorite thing about HR (the school). Before I continue, you should know that I hate bathrooms here. They are gross, cold, and ill-equipped. My second installment of Seriously Korea?! Is about the bathroom, currently written but not edited. So basically bathrooms suck. So when a sweet little girl in the class said the bathroom was her favorite thing about HR I was BLOWN AWAY! I am well aware most of the kids hate Hagwon, but so far as to say the best part is by far my least favorite part was a shock! I hope this will make more sense when I post the Seriously Korea?!, but it was bad.

Today, Friday, I went to the post office to mail something to my sister for her birthday. I know it probably won’t make it in time, but it is the thought that counts. Anyway, I got to the location and went to the desk. I had the woman the envelope and she says “Africa? Ohh…” to which I respond “Ne,” which means yes. She spends a good 5 minutes rifling through books and typing stuff in. Meanwhile I’m freaking out that my bill is going to be $30 and then translating “never mind I don’t want to send it” would be very hard. After it all ended, 1210₩ or basically $1! I was shocked! A pleasant little surprise that I could send a little birthday cheer without breaking the bank!

At school, on the last day of the month, students in reading classes must give speeches they have worked on all month. It starts at the beginning of the month with a topic and they outline, write and rewrite until the end of the month when they present it. Along with the speaking part, they also must create a visual aid, which always ends up being a PowerPoint presentation, or as they like to say, a PPT. There were two notable things that were on their presentations. First, one of my student’s was giving his speech and on his last slide, he snuck in a grainy black and white photo of Barack Obama. However, the thing that totally rocked me was when one girl was sharing hers on Parents’ Day, she talked about President Bill Clinton who instituted the day (supposedly celebrated on the 4th Sunday each July). On her PowerPoint, she said “Here is a picture of President Clinton,” but instead of Bill, there was a picture of Hilary! I almost died! I had to hold in the laughter because she was in the middle of her speech! AHHH!!! SOOO FUNNY!!!!

Anyway, now I am writing this while enjoying a pizza, rounding off what was a pretty good work week. I hope this continues so you can get another fill next Friday. I also will try to start taking more pictures. I carry my camera everywhere I go, but never end up taking any pictures.

A Not So Lazy Sunday

I feel like I have not had a lot of time to write, but now I have some time and had a great day yesterday, so I think I will give you a bit of the mundane existence living in a foreign country...

So I woke up, and due to the fact the Michigan hockey season ended the day before (this calls for a moment of silence...

...

...

... moment over), I went for a quick run prior to watching the Chicago Fire season opener via an internet stream. It was a great game. Chicago owned play. They solidly handled all the Union's attacks and looked dangerous moving forward. Promising start to the season. 1-0 victory!

After Skyping with Scotty prior to his departure to the backwoods of Virginia (good luck), I headed to Seoul. I was visiting Insadong again, the traditional market area, to find a gift for Kim's birthday. The guidebook I have talked about a restaurant that served 만두국 (manduguk - dumpling soup). The book talked up the homemade 만두 (mandu - dumplings) and this dish is one of my usuals at Korean restaurants. So I walked up and down the street several times looking for it without luck. While doing this, there were large numbers of students walking around in clumps with signs about the Nuclear Summit. I was stopped by several groups to get pictures taken with me. I didn't ask why, but I thought "what the heck? They need the picture for something and I have nothing better to do so I can pause for a picture." So I posed for a few, smiled and chatted with them for a minute. Right when I was about to give up, I decide to turn up an alley, the restaurant was right there! Unfortunately, it was not my favorite 만두국, but it was pretty good. Dumplings were above average, but the broth was less than thrilling. They did have some side dishes that were phenomenal including a pasta salad and some other noodle things.

After my meal I wandered around looking for a museum that I never found, so I went to a Buddhist Temple as a back up. It was a beautiful compound, but it was kind of intimidating. The art and GIANT Buddhas were really fantastic, but the problem was I did not know what I could or could not do without insulting or offending someone. Therefore I just walked around the compound, looked inside buildings and kept my distance from any statue or monument.

From there I went to the Chabbad House to visit the Rabbi and talk Passover. We sat and talked for a while about what is good and not good to eat, where the rules come from, the stories, and a number of other Jewish things. As we were finishing up, he asked if I would like to wrap tefillin. Never having done so before, I decided to give it a try. I enjoyed it, quite an experience. He even lent me a set to take with so I can try wrapping at home and see how I like it.

As I unwrapped, a few other people came in looking for Kosher for Passover food. When introducing ourselves, I found out that they ALSO LIVE IN BUNDANG! THERE ARE OTHER JEWS IN MY TOWN! It was a really cool feeling to know I am not the only one in the city. They live a few neighborhoods over, but still in the same place. We talked, shopped and exchanged information. Great to find new people in my town. Also, while shopping, I bought a thing of Hammentashen so I have gotten my fix from Purim.

Since Obama and all these other people were in town for a Nuclear conference, Police were everywhere! I saw what must have been a staging area that had at least 200 cops in partial riot gear. Very interesting. More police than I have ever seen in the country. They were on every corner.

View from the road looking north in Seoul. The mountain looked so great in between the buildings.

Walking back to the bus I looked to see the crescent moon and two stars showing in the dark night. Picture turned out nicely.

This one was from today, not my Seoul adventure. Christina, one of my first graders, started to play with the shoebox she brought in for our in class project. She set it like that and started pretending it was a computer. It was WAY TOO CUTE!

Early February Update!

It has been a long time since I have written, so I thought I would take some time and write a quick post.

January is now over, which means intensives are over. During the month of January, public school is on vacation, which means that kids spend more time at academies instead of going to camps, playing or having fun of any sort. This means a lot of hours spent at the school, however a more normal schedule. I started work every morning at 8:30 and would get out between 5:30 and 8:30. The hours do not seem so glamorous, but there were breaks in between. This schedule suited me well most considering I am a morning person.

The teaching is becoming more natural. There are huge differences between what and how I teach here and how everything ran in the States. First of all, I am in a private language academy not a public school. This means that the people who pay are the only people to make happy, not the department of education. This also leads to the problem of not having a curriculum. Therefore, most of the time I am preparing for classes, I am creating curriculum. The classes that take most my time are my TOEFL Speaking classes. TOEFL is the Test of English as a Foreign Language, which is used to check speakers of other languages ability with English, most often in order to get into American universities. I teach all the upper level classes of TOEFL speaking, nobody else does at my school, so I am creating and teaching my own material. It is hard to tell if it is sinking in or not.

I have been regularly traveling around the area. Granted most often I am going to Seoul, but I have ventured a few other places. Seoul is very large and there are a ton of different places I have gone to but there is still tons more to do. I have gone to a museum, walked around the foreigners’ district, bought a custom fitted shirt (only $30!), went to see Seoul from the top of a tower, and just hang out with friends. I also went skiing once with some friends. The mountain was not so impressive, but it was a lot of fun and super cheap! It only cost $50 for transit to and from, lift ticket, and rentals. The last place I have gone exploring is a little area called Jukjeon. It is a tiny little café district. You can stand in the middle of the road and see 6 coffee shops (I do not understand how this country survives financially). The area is really cute and reminds me a little bit of Kerrytown with the older buildings and atmosphere.

I posted a video of my apartment on YouTube. Watch it so you can see where I live.

Hope you enjoyed! BYE!

Seoul Adventures, Part 3: Transit Nightmares and a Mansion

When the bell rang for the New Year, I was not much more than 200 feet from the subway entrance, but it took 20 minutes to get there. People just weren’t moving or all trying to go different directions. It was a huge pain. Once I made it to the subway, I had to wait for two trains before I could get on because the platform was so full.

The train platform. SO MANY PEOPLE!

I had to make two transfers, first to the 3 Line, then to the SinBundang Line or Bundang Line. Catching the 3 was easy. I took the train to the transfer to the SinBundang Line and got off. The train pulled away as I got to the caged off area for the SinBundang line, and this is when I really started to worry. It was 1AM, 1 Hour to get home and the Bundang line is not fast and I had to wait for the next 3 Line train to come through. I waited and waited. Waited, waited, and waited. 20 minutes pass while on the platform and I try to talk to a couple who was looking for the SinBundang line to see if they were from the same area I needed to go to. I took out my handy phrasebook and pointed because I was too tired to try to speak Korean. Thankfully one of them spoke English. They were from two neighborhoods over, thank god, so we decided to share a cab if there were issues with the Bundang line.

After 30 minutes of waiting, another train came. We went down to the next stations to see if the Bundang line was open. When we arrived there, it was also closed. Tried another transfer point, again, closed. So frustrated, exhausted, hungry, sleepy, etc. I joined the couple to find a cab and ride home.

We got in a cab which took about 15 minutes to get to Sunae station where it dropped me off. I said thank you and gamsa hamnida a million times and paid for my share of the fair, but then I had a 20 minute walk home at 2AM. Korea is very safe, I have never felt threatened at all, even when I was in the massive throng of people where I could have easily been pickpocketed, I was not concerned. So walking home was more of a marathon of a distance than a nervous trek through dangerous streets.

I was so hungry on the long, quiet walk back that I stopped and got a bag of chocolate chip cookies in a convenience store on the walk. I gobbled them up in two minutes. They were delicious. I got back after another ten minutes, put my key in the door, turned it the wrong way, swore, unlocked the door and immediately changed and collapsed on my bed. I Skyped with my mom and brother for a minute before falling asleep. Soundly.

In conclusion, I do not plan on going back to Seoul for any late night adventures any time soon. It will definitely be a few weeks at least.

Or so I thought...

I ended up back in Seoul again the next weekend to go to Hongdae. Hongdae is a hip, young area people go to party. There is a University there. There are also a lot of clubs. My friend Kenny's friend was hosting a party at one of the clubs so we had to go. I ended up having a blast! I have never been clubbing before because noisy, dark places are not good for someone with vision and hearing problems. Regardless, I do love music, so I just made it work and danced like crazy! Here is some evidence from the night.

The DJ was pretty awesome

I forget what song they were playing, but it was an American rock song.

Dancing on the stage.

I have a good feeling Hongdae will be an occasional treat I'll give myself. I also did not need to rely on public transit. We took a cab home.

Seoul Adventures, Part 2: New Years Eve

So all week leading up to New Years I kept asking the Korean teachers “what quintessential Korean thing is there to do on New Year’s?” They all mentioned two things: the ringing of a giant bell in Seoul and going to the east coast and catching the first sunrise of the year before most other people have even gotten into it. I am still very nervous about traveling, especially on my own, in a country where I do not know the language (and you will see with good reason why later), so I decided I WAS going to Seoul for the bell ringing since I already knew how to get there and back. I proceeded to run an aggressive campaign to get people to come with me, but all my attempts failed (subliminal messaging, completing people’s sentences with my answer, answering other people’s questions for them, and the mother of all Jewish weapons: guilt), so I was going in on my own.

On New Year’s Eve Eve, I went out with my coworkers and stayed out quite late, making waking up after only 5 hours of sleep to trek all day not so fun. Regardless, I was on the bus with Amanda around 11:30. When we got into Seoul, we walked around Insadong for quite a while. She had a list of things to buy and was determined not to leave empty handed. I was still “just looking” since I still have 11.5 months to buy these things. After we spent a good two hours walking up and down the main street and into a few alleys, one of which led us to the tea house from the previous weekend by complete accident, Amanda was ready to head back home.

An alleyway off of Insadong's main street

At this point she walked me to Myeongdong. She told me if I decided to back out of my Seoul New Year’s, I could meet up with her and Katie for a quiet New Year’s celebration. I put it in the back of my mind as a reliable back up considering how determined I was to see the bell ring, but also just in case I found out about issues with transit or something.

A cool ice thing we passed while walking to Myeongdong

From there I walked around the market. It had tons of familiar and unique stores. I tried walking in every shoe store in hopes of finding a good pair of slippers for my apartment but everything was too small for me or they didn’t have what I was looking for. I did stumble across a really cool watch but the guy wanted $15 dollars for a plastic watch that was really cool, but definitely not worth more than 7 so I left it.

Food stand in the market. The long leathery straps at the bottom are dried Octopus tentacles

Now around 3:30pm I was ready to eat. My meal times have been thrown around by my sleep and work schedules that 3:30pm almost seemed normal time to have a meal. I got SoonDooBoo, a spicy soup filled with tofu. I know you may be surprised I am eating tofu, carnivore of all carnivores, but Korean tofu is a different ball game. It is actually amazing, not a block of inedible junk. While there I did some school work and watched some Korean Basketball. This took me until 5pm. I’m already tired and there are still 7 hours until the bell will ring. Already considering going home, but I was not giving up so easy.

So I walked some more. If I had a pedometer or something to track my distance, I would guess I walked between 7 and 10 miles throughout the whole day. I walked from Myeongdong, through a bunch of alleys, turned out right behind the giant bell by accident, walked again through Insadong, this time in stores I hadn’t before, and that brought me to 7pm. I knew I needed to eat something even though I was not hungry, considering I would likely pass out of hunger while standing for the bell if I didn’t. I decided to find someplace that had small food, not meals, but I unfortunately ended up at Dunkin Donuts, not so much because I dislike their place, because I love Dunkin Donuts, but more for the fact that I couldn’t find a Korean place that served non-meal food.

The bell

While there, I decided to get some work done. I needed to finish reading Treasure Island for one of my classes. This proved to be a problem because I kept on falling asleep while reading it. It was one of those falling asleep in lecture type things where you are asleep for two minutes and you wake up and you realize you’ve been out for a bit. It is barely even 8PM and I am already falling asleep. Wonderful. I was considering giving up, but I thought after how hard I lobbied for people to join me. I would be a disgrace if I did not stay out for the bell, so I convinced myself to stay.

I went outside around 9:30 to scout out a spot, and it was still relatively vacant. I was concerned about travelling back home so I asked some cops who told me all the subways would be open until 2AM. Given that news I was reenergized and decided to stay out.

While standing on the corner, I heard some bells going (not the big one but a bunch of hand bells). I looked and saw the Blue Man Group, Korea. They were all wearing blue suits with blue face paint and were not talking. Then a man dressed like a cat jumped out and started doing magic and juggling. He was not a very good juggler, but it took up time so I wasn’t just standing for 2.5 hours.

Blue Man Group, Korea

The "Magician"

After that ended, the crowd started to form. There were times when there were so many people around that I could lean a bit and nobody would notice and I would be held up. It was nice to get some rest considering I had been walking all day.

All of a sudden, I felt this surge of people from behind me. I started to freak out. Considering I was larger than everyone, I just started to box people out so I wouldn’t get trampled. I soon realized that they had closed off the road and were letting people onto it, so I slowly moved with the crowd to end up with a nice spot to stand on the elevated curb on the far side of the street from the bell. Still about an hour until the bell, I decided to take out my iPod and play some final games of FIFA for the year (Seongnam Manager Mode and Korea vs Cameroon). The games finished just as they started the festivities. There were a few singers and presentation of bell ringers. Of course I did not understand anything, but I used sense to figure it out.

My vantage point to see the bell and stage.

In the crowd, somehow managed to get a picture taken.

Then the countdown began, in Korean. I tried to join in, but I just learned the numbers earlier that day in my vast amount of extra time, so I couldn’t keep up. When the bell rang, it was the first time in the past three weeks that I have had any homesickness. Every year I have seen my family within several hours, but this was the first time it would be 6 months before seeing any of them.

Now this is where the fun begins, and by fun I mean nightmare. To be continued tomorrow...

Seoul Adventures, Part 1: Foreigners Meeting Foreigners

I have now been to Seoul twice (written prior to last night’s clubbing). It takes about 40 minutes to get to the north side of the city, where I started out both trips. It is interesting to be so close to an international city such as Seoul. It will take a while to get used to it. Although I have been twice, I have not ventured out very much from this area within the city known as Insadong. Insadong is considered one of the cultural capitals of South Korea. It is a market area that has a number of stores with “traditional” crafts. The odd thing about it is that there are permanent stores and mobile carts and stands in the same place. It is an interesting dynamic. Although I have been twice, I have still yet to purchase anything, but I am formulating a list of good gifts to get for friends and family.

All that said, now I can go into the specifics of each visit. The first visit was over our Christmas vacation weekend. Most of my coworkers had planned a trip to Tokyo for the 4 day weekend, but I was not ready to jump on a plane so soon after arriving. So I went with my other abandoned coworker (just kidding HR-ites who are reading), Amanda, to explore Seoul. I wanted to go to a palace and see the architecture and read about it while Amanda wanted to go get gifts for friends and family.

We started by going to ChangDeokGung, an ancient palace inside the city of Seoul. While waiting to purchase tickets, I heard some people speaking English so I decided to strike up a conversation, and boy was that the right idea. The couple that were there were brother and sister on a 12 hour layover from Vietnam, where they are English teachers, to Hawaii to meet their parents for a little vaca. So we just ended up walking around with them in the palace and spent the majority of the day with them.

The palace was gorgeous, however there were no posted signs or anything to read about the different areas of the vast complex so it was much more of a visual tour. If you do make your way to Korea, I would recommend going to a palace, but with a tour. I plan on going back and taking a tour of the same palace with the extra secret garden tour, which is supposed to be phenomenal, sometime this spring or summer when stuff is in bloom.

Palace Gates

Welcome to Korea, where I am taller than 15% of doors

This is the basic design on all the buildings. The picture does not do the colors justice.

So the group of us left the palace to walk down the street. We decided to take our new friends on a crash course of Korean cuisine. We stopped for KimBap, a Sushi-esque rice, egg, radish, assorted greens, and chosen toppings wrapped in seaweed sheet. I will need to do an involved blog soon on cuisine, but this description will do for now. After our little appetizer, we went to find a Korean BBQ*. While we ate the BBQ, we swapped stories about life and teaching in our countries. They had so many funny stories about living in Vietnam and how backwards it is, it made Korea sound like a cushy job teaching in the suburbs. After we ate, we found a cool little tea shop (more on the shop later oddly enough) and shared more. It was truly so much fun to randomly find such cool people and connect in such a short period of time.

Jujube Tea from the Traditional Tea House

After that, our Vietnamese friends had to head back to the airport to head to the warmth of Hawaii (yes, that is a hint of jealousy). Amanda and I went back to Insadong to do some shopping/looking for a bit but neither of us were particularly successful. The two of us split up as I went to Chabad House for services and dinner. It was really wonderful to have a good Jewish experience so close to arriving. I did enjoy it, but there were times of frustration, just based on the differences with practice between myself and the Orthodoxim who led the services/house. I was able to light the Channukiah which was really touching. Unfortunately most of the people who were there were just visiting so I could not find and meet peers or people who I could connect with, so my social group remains only those who I work with (again, HR-ites, this is not a bad thing, just a limiting thing). After services I found my way home on the subway.

Snow falling as I left the Chabad House

Trip number two was for New Years. It will be in the next post.

*If you have not had Korean BBQ, you really should try to find one. Get KalBi or this thin pork stuff that I can’t remember what it is called