Golgulsa Temple

From choking down still squirming Korean cuisine to stripping down butt naked with women quadruple my age, I have dabbled in the most eccentric of Korean cultural traditions. But a big piece of the pie has been missing: delving into the extremely foreign and ancient religion of Buddhism.

Korea is a predominantly Buddhist country, and I often find myself bumping into monks decked in traditional gray cotton garb in the most mundane of settings (a monk had to nudge me once because I was sitting on the sleeve of his robe without realizing it!) The beauty of the Buddhist faith is that it invites people from all religions to come and find similarities in Buddhism that mirror those highlighted in their own faith. Point in case: the temple stay.

This past weekend, Shaina, Amanda and I set out for Golgulsa Temple, a Buddhist temple famed for it's very accessible (meaning they have a monk who speaks ENGLISH!) temple stay program. Temple stays are a means to dip a toe in Buddhism; to test the waters, so to speak. For however long you pay for, you can sleep, eat, chant, pray and essentially coexist with the resident monks to get a crash course in Buddhism. There is no quicker way to learn the tenets of an ancient religion than to shadow someone who devotes their every waking moment to its practice.

2 subway lines and 3 bus rides got us to Golgulsa's gates at around 4:30pm, and with Korea's temperatures plummeting into the 20s and below in the evening, our cups of green tea were clattering around on their saucers as we tried to warm up in the main office. It was 40,000 won for 2 days and 1 night of Buddhist life- a bargain when you consider you get all your meals included, tea time, exercise classes and a place to sleep.

A hollow wooden gourd is tapped to signal the beginning of prayers and meal times, so we were delighted to hear the "tap tap-tap-tap" sounding off at 5:30p.m. Luckily, my one prior experience with Buddhist dining at Dhongwasa temple prepared me for the meal. Buddhists believe in moderation, so eating is simply a ritual to fuel the body. So what does that mean? That means that you better elbow your way in front of all those little bald men or there won't be any tofu left! A Buddhist meal is typically finished in under 30 minutes and you are REQUIRED to eat every bit of what you serve yourself. And I mean every. bit. If you leave even a single grain of rice behind, the women behind the counter who prepared the meal are likely to swat you with a ladle and you will be sentenced to bowing punishment by the Grand Master (the big daddy monk in residence). And let me tell you- bowing is no joke! 1 bow is actually a complicated series of kneeling and placing your forehead on a mat three times in succession and punishment bows are prescribed in the thousands. For example: you are late to chanting- that's 3,000 bows, please. I'm sure you are scoffing and saying to yourself "yeah right, like someone would actually do that many bows." Let me attest: it's real! It generally takes anywhere from 13-18 hours for a 3,000 bow punishment to be completed (and punishment bows can go higher than 8,000!!) I was never late... to anything!

See?

After our meal of tofu, kimchi, rice, slivered onions, sesame spinach and red bean dok (rice cake), we had to get changed and walk in the arctic, thought-obliterating cold to sunmudo training, which is Buddhist martial arts. 90 minutes of it. The training began with chanting for 1/2 an hour. Unfortunately, it was all in Korean, so I mouthed some of the sounds but I haven't the faintest what I was saying. Following chanting is meditation, the most important aspect of Buddhism. When I asked one of the monks what the most important principle behind Buddhism is, he told me it is to know yourself. That sounds pretty spacey, but it has to do with the fact that until you know yourself through and through, you cannot hope to connect with the divine at all because baser human inclinations like pride, anger, lust etc. would interfere (sound familiar?). Meditation is used to quiet your mind so you can get beneath all that and realize that every single human being is the same, and all of our struggles in life are completely self-imposed.

I'd like to tell you that something miraculous happened and that I had a true moment of zen huddled on the cold wooden floors of the training room. I could lie and say that the heavens parted, and infinite wisdom and peace rained down upon me in my supreme meditative state and that I awoke enlightened. But no. I sat there for another half hour, shaking from the cold, muttering in my mind over a numb butt and lower back pain and worrying when I would next get an opportunity to go pee before this running and jumping martial arts business started up. (As a side note, I asked the Sunmudo master what he does to combat the stiff back that sitting cross-legged on a hard floor will give you and he said with a huge, endearing smile: "Why, I sit on my couch, of course.") Once the actual Sunmudo began it was 9pm. We began with light stretching (one of the moves was to rub your belly and smile!) before channeling animal movements into our exercises: running around smacking your knuckles on the ground like a chimp, slithering on the floor like a dragon and running on all fours like a tiger. And then we played leap frog! Quite possibly the BEST game of leap frog ever! There were 2 monks present among all the temple-stay participants and they were vaulting over people, laughing uproariously and acting like children. Once sunmudo was finished, we had to bundle back up and traverse the vertical, hellish hill to our room, which housed 6 people. It was Korean style, meaning we slept on a few blankets on the floor, but we all tried to go to bed as quickly as possible because.... here's the clincher.... monks get up at 4 IN THE MORNING!! Apparently, that's when the cosmos begin to jive. CLICK HERE for a video of some of the chanting.

None of us slept though. The wooden building was creaking like a haunted house all night and the gale force winds were seeping through the rice paper coverings on the doors. And the wind chime. OH the wind chime... I wanted to rip it from the rafters and chuck it into the woods, but I didn't want to be smote by Buddha or anything, so we all lay there listening to clanging metal bits and groaning floorboards until 4a.m. rolled around and a junior monk came chanting around our building, knocking on the same wooden gourd. Buddhist courtesy wake-up call. Chanting and meditation lasted for an hour and a half, and it was a comical juxtaposition: bleary-eyed, shivering foreigners, poised stiffly on the floorboards, glancing obsessively at the clock ticking away the seconds next to these serene little mounds of gray robes with bald heads poking out, oblivious to the temperature and the time; happy to be there. Oh, and since Buddha traveled the world with a dog at his side, there are all these husky-type dogs (a specific breed in Korea known as the Jindo) walking around next to the monks, acting just as zen. They had their own pillows in the temple and were sprawled out, relaxing among the fog of incense and trance-inducing chanting.

Breakfast was at 5:50 after walking meditation (outside!). Because it was Sunday, we were allowed to observe and participate in Balwoo-gongyang: the traditional 4 bowl meal that Buddhists use to promote mindfulness when eating. The bowls come to you stacked within one another like Russian nesting dolls. You have a rice bowl, soup bowl, vegetable bowl and water bowl. At the beginning of the meal, a splash of water is poured into the rice bowl and you use it to rinse out each bowl before the food is put in BUT you don't throw the water out: you keep it in the water bowl. The ultimate point of the meal is to clean your bowls so there is not a single particle of food left over in your bowl once the meal has finished. You are supposed to savor and appreciate every facet of the meal from the work that went into producing the food, to chewing to reveling in the sensation of being full at the end. It's a simple meal of rice and vegetables, and at the end, a junior monk will give you some hot water to wash out your rice bowl. You take a piece of kimchi (you are supposed to save 1 piece for this exact purpose) and scrub the bowls clean using the kimchi and chopsticks. Moving the water form bowl to bowl, you clean each one until you have some hot water with a few spices floating in it at the end. You drink this and eat the piece of kimchi. Rinse one last time with the cold water form the water bowl. A junior monk comes around and collects this cold water into a large bucket and brings it for inspection to the grand master. If the water is as clean as when it was first doled out, then the meal was a success. Many of the temple stay participants messed up and had dirty bowels or drank the water because they forgot how to correctly dispose of it- but I did the whole thing correctly! After the ceremonial breakfast meal we had tea time with one of the monks (an opportunity to discuss Buddhism and meet each other) and walked around the temple grounds until it was time for lunch. Too pooped to linger for much longer, we decided to head back home after lunch.

Walking through the countryside, trying to find Golgulsa Temple. The moment you get outside a major city, Korea becomes extremely rural. We were traipsing through rice paddies and persimmon orchards until we finally found a big wooden sign with a leftward-facing swastika, the Buddhist symbol of eternity, unity and looove.
This is a Jindo, a breed of dog only found in Korea. They were everywhere!

Rubbing the Buddha belly for luck.
:)
Our accommodations. Men on the ground floor, women above.
Rice paper walls DO NOT do a good job of keeping freezing wind out. Let's add something to the list of "things I miss": drywall and insulation.

6 girls to a room. Traditional Korean style with mats for the floor. Our floor heater did not work very well, so we were freezing the whole night.

Sunmudo training.

If you didn't pay attention, the penalty was a roundhouse kick to the face! Just kidding, but the monks were sparring. So cool to watch.

UPDATE ON PEPERO DAY:

So much for banning Pepero day, Maegok was awash in Pepero wrappers by the time class let out. I ate every single pepero I was given and had the best sugar high of my life that evening. here are some pic of some of my first graders, pepero in-hand.
Note the flu masks.
Juliet- the cutest 1st grader EVER!

Weekend in Seoul, Billibow and Peppero Day

If I were a car, the needle would be pointing to a 3/4 tank full of gas-I am still rearing to go. Taking stock of my experiences thus far in Korea, I admit that I'm impressed with my steadfast optimism; not my usual forte. During orientation, we were warned that shortly following the "Honeymoon" phase of our love affair with Korea, most TaLK participants would undergo a deep and bitter resentment of this country and would begin dropping from the program like flies. However, I am 3 1/2 months in, and I feel right at home.

This past weekend, Shaina's sister, Alicia, visited all the way from Boston. During the week, we all palled around in the evenings, going to cafes and making fun of all the Korean quirks that make this experiences a real gut-buster. For example, while we were waiting for Shaina and Alicia to meet us in the lobby of the train station, a drunk/homeless guy started yodeling and doing a wobbly, groin-swiveling dance. I did what any respectful expatriate abiding by customary Korean politeness would do: I filmed it. Here is the video.

Teacher Katy fulfilled her own agenda by ending classes early on Friday to make it to the train station on time. Actually, classes are somewhat of a joke lately since attendance began to plummet. My 2nd grade class of 38 students has petered down to a mere 7 because parents all across Korea are gripped with the Swine Flu panic. Every holiday and field trip has been cancelled, and most national and state attractions (theme parks, nature preserves, the zoo, etc.) have been closed to prevent the flu from spreading. Alcohol hand sanitizing machines are sprouting up overnight in the subways like metal weeds, and the "subway salespeople" I mentioned in my last post have tossed their nutcrackers and and are peddling face masks instead. They sell out every time. Maybe all of these preventative measures would do some good if Koreans young and old understood the first thing about contagious illness: that you don't violently cough/sneeze in each other's face!!!! This is every foreigner's biggest gripe with Korean people: their utter lack of germ-conscientiousness. Example: I am seated next to a 40ish woman on the subway. She has to cough. Does she face the other direction and send her phlegmy rain of spittle away from my person? No. She leans her head back and fires it, cannon-like, into the air to hover in a viral cloud around my face. Example 2: Teacher Katy is grading activity books. The child offers me his/her book and simultaneously sneezes across my keyboard and then proceeds to wipe their face with their wrist, smearing dirt/snot/candy residue from their mouths in streaks across their cheeks.
My school has asked me to wear a mask. I think I look like Reptile or Subzero off of Mortal Kombat.
We arrived at Seoul at 9p.m. Friday night. Unfortunately, our first hour and a half was spent walking, walking, walking in search of a love hotel to leave our stuff in. When we finally found one, the owner was already asleep (the owners sleep on mats on the floors in tiny rooms with sliding windows barely big enough to fit your hand through). We had to keep tapping on the window until he woke up, crazy-eyed and disoriented to take our 60,000 won and shove 2 sets of keys to us through the window. After unloading, we headed back to the subway to ride to Hongdae: Seoul's drinking district.

I was overcome with the sensation that I was revisiting the red light district in Amsterdam the moment we arrived with flickering crimson-colored lighting bathing the narrow streets. There were bars everywhere you turned and you had to watch your step lest you slip and fall in a pile of vomit congealing on the sidewalk. Alicia, Amanda and Shaina all grabbed some soju at a bar called "With" but decided that the steep prices weren't worth it, so they hit up a "Buy The Way" (Convenience store) for some Hite beer and we headed to "Candy Candy Noraebang". "Noraebang" is Korean karaoke. You rent a room, which has sound proof walls, it's own sound system, tv, mini fridge and plush couches and chairs. Noraebang establishments have THE best selection of songs I have ever encountered, and we sand everything from "Zombie" from the Cranberries to "Part of Your World" form Aladdin.
Picking our next song.
Shaina and her sister, Alicia (left).
Ah Konglish, you never cease to amuse me.

The next day, we headed to Itaewon, which is the foreigner's district in Seoul. We cruised the streets aimlessly, picking up a few more souvenirs for people back at home, but at 4 I had to part with the rest of the group to meet with Angela, the coordinator for the TaLK program. Angela was instrumental in getting me to Korea in the first place, answering my feverish rapid-fire of e-mails at all hours of the day and night and helping me coordinate with the Korean consulate in Georgia to schedule my interview not once, not twice but 5 different times before we settled on a workable date. So, I met up with her to go and get a pedicure at some hole-in-the-wall salon that was absolutely popping when we arrived. Angela is a fascinating woman since she was born in Korea, but raised in the Middle East and Australia before returning to Korea. She says things like "No, worries mate" in an accent tinged with extremely proper Indian-esque pronunciation and then launches into Korean with the owner of the salon. Talk about a woman of the world.
My delish sashimi lunch in Itaewon.
Shaina made a kimchi and rice pumpkin!
That night I had my first rendezvous with another traditional Korean dish: rice porridge. A continuous light drizzle and chilly wind left us feeling like popsicle people by evening, so when I suggested a porridge restaurant, the girls were down. Korean porridge is usually made from white rice boiled down into a paste-like consistency, then mixed with ground sesame seeds, seaweed flakes and whatever flavors you want like tofu, shrimp, crab or ::gulp:: abalone- a crustacean that takes a hand saw to cut open and tastes like bitter shoe leather. I had broccoli and tofu and it was divine- like a warm brick in my belly for the rest of the evening.
Korean porridge!
Every so often you will find these signs for a "special massage". It's always the most expensive, and sometimes it only appears on the list once night has fallen.
On Sunday, Shaina had to accompany her sister back to the airport, so Amanda and I headed to a Jimjilbang (public bath) to pass the time before Shaina got back and we would take the train back to Daegu. It was glorious as it always is, and we both actually fell asleep on our mats, lying on the heated wooden floors, surrounded by Korean families snacking on hard-boiled eggs, tangerines and boiled sweet potatoes. I have a hard life, don't I?

Back in the grind in Daegu, the only time to go out is during the evening once everyone is finished with their classes and lesson planning. Foreigners have repeatedly mentioned a bar called "Billibow" as a great place to go to hear Western music and, of course, play billibow. Billibow is a nickname for a game that is a fusion of billiards and bowling. You hit a pool ball with a pool stick down a long bowling lane to knock over miniaturized pins at the end. Strangely enough, I scored the same in billibow as I would during normal bowling (90-120 range)!
Look what I found!

Peppero Day is the most genius business idea I have ever witnessed. It's a national holiday that really isn't an official holiday at all. Peppero are a popular candy in Korea (think very thin bread stick covered in chocolate- almost like a Take 5 candy bar in the States). it's celebrated on November 11 (11/11) because peppero resemble the number 1. Koreans go mad buying up all these Peppero arrangements (in the shapes of stars and hearts,etc.) from the store to give to their significant other, friends and family. It's a bit like Valentine's day. However, because of the Swine Flu panic, Maegok (my school) does not condone celebrating Peppero Day. As I am writing this, I am preparing to go to class, and I am eager to see if Peppero Day will still happen. My guess is it will be as popular as ever since my kids were thrusting peppero in my face all day yesterday despite chastising and warnings from the Principle.

Expect an update to this post with news on my first ever Peppero Day!

Danyang Lake, Gosu Cave, Halloween and Mt. Apsan....whew!

After an hour and a half of contortions and getting dripped on by stalactites, I was all spelunked out after our trek through Gosu Cave. But let me back up:

TaLK paid for our second "Cultural Excursion" trip, which turned out to be a visit to a beautiful lake up in some random mountains, an underground hike through a jagged cave system and then dinner at another lake with some unique rock formations.

Once again, the plan was to meet at 8 sharp at Daegok Subway station, which is a solid hour and 10 minutes from my apartment. That night, we had stayed out late at a foreigner ball called "Sugar Joes" to watch some live music from a band called "Adrenalin." It turned out to be an excellent evening because the band played a lot of soul and R&B. But the best part was the fact that one of the band-mates was a 14-year-old white lab who spent the evening begging for pretzels from the bar top. I rolled around on the dirty bar floor for a solid 20 minutes, getting licks and laughing over the pronounced "brain bump" on the back of his head (for all you dog owners, you know what I'm talking about. The knot on top of their heads that houses the peanut-brain ^.^)


We did not get home until about 2 a.m., so during the first 2 hours of our 3-hour bus ride to the mountains, I was splayed out over 3 chairs, dead to the world. When we arrived, you couldn't help but to be jolted awake when a blast of 50-degree wind whipped clear through you. The scenery was picturesque because the leaves are just beginning to turn; with all the trees a muddy mix of browns and burnt oranges. Being from Florida, I've never seen a true Fall, so Korea is going to be a treat.
Doing the Kimchi squat
This was REALLY high up!
These ladies were so thrilled by the cruise! Actually, the one in the middle gave us that container of popcorn when she saw me take a picture. Koreans do that all the time: try and feed me. Everywhere I go it's like sample day at the grocery store.

After the boat ride (including after some impromptu Norabang-karaoke- from the cruise's 70 and older crowd) we headed to Gosu cave. In any State or National park in America, the "Take only pictures, leave only footprints" decree is strictly enforced. I remember trying to snatch a pine cone from Yosemite and getting a tongue lashing from a park ranger, foaming at the mouth over my impertinence...my disrespect for the American Park system... However, in Korea, if you feel the impulse to snap off a chunk of limestone stalactite for a souvenir, the penalty may be a raised eyebrow and a grunt from the park coordinators. In Gosu cave I was flabbergasted to see tourists taking photos (the deadly, corrosive power of the flash!), empty water bottles tossed on to the ground and kids slithering across slippery rock formations like it was Mother Nature's slip N slide.
The unexpected singing and dancing on the boat ride. These people were breaking it down to some Korean jams from the 40s and 50s and subsequently falling down when we hit a rough patch of water. None of them could stop laughing as they kept tumbling over the seats and each other with each swell that rocked the boat.
Our lunch.
The first inklings of fall!
The entrance to Gosu Cave

I saw a dad give his son a boost up to these puddles so he could splash around in his rubber boots. Can you imagine getting away with that at Yellowstone?
A photo op station. These worked much the same as a roller coaster at a theme park. You came to a certain spot in the cave that was supposed to make you gaze up in wonder (going along with the analogy it was like the point where you hit a major drop in the roller coaster) and this hidden camera takes a candid photo of you. Whereas pretty much everyone is in the throws of screaming on a roller coaster, there were some HILARIOUS pics of people caught off guard picking their noses, pulling wedgies or just looking supremely bored. Needless to say,. I did not purchase the 20,000 won photo of me slack jawed, staring at my camera and deleting pictures. Not a Kodak moment.
Look Mom, a trumpet tree!Perhaps a neat-o audio cassette of a popular 80s one-hit-wonder as a souvenir from Gosu Cave?
Beneath our rather overwhelming Captain Morgan stance, there is a man dressed as a woman. We have no idea why he was dressed this way, we only know that his friends were laughing and taking photos, so we suspect a lost bet.
Posing in front of the aptly named "3 Weird Rocks". 3 Rocks. In the middle of a lake. We were there for 2 hours 0.o

Bored on the bus ride home, one of our Korean friend's decided to terrorize unsuspecting passengers. Korean Bugles for fingernails and a Scream mask she won at a balloon-popping contest held out in front of Gosu Cave.

For the past week, I have been inundating my kids with Halloween mania. I had Halloween Bingo, YouTube scary videos including THIS one, which made some run out of the room, a color-your-own haunted house game and tons and tons of M&Ms and Snickers to give away as prizes. It was fun to see what Korean children thought of Halloween, and I can boil it down to this: they think Americans are quite literally posessed by demons one night and terrorize the land and that chocolate is the only means of subduing this madness. Pumpkins are an everyday food in a typical Korean household, so carving a face on one and putting a candle inside was mind boggling. I taught the kids the names of all sorts of Halloween costume ideas (vampire, ghost, witch, mummy, etc.) but the funniest was their pronunciation of zombie: Jom-b. The letter "z" is mispronounced almost as often as the letter "l".
I wanted to test the counting skills of my 4,5 and 6th graders, so I made these little containers of M&Ms. Each one had over 200 pieces, and I wrote the exact number on the back of each pumpkin. The kids had to write their guesses on slips of paper and I gave the whole thing to the kid with the closest guess.

For Teacher Katy's Halloween, I decided to head downtown to an expat bar that was throwing a free Halloween-themed bash catered to non-Koreans. I went as a mummy...or at least I had the intention of going as a mummy. But somewhere along the way I was mixed up with a Greek Goddess/dead bride from the 80s. With no costume stores in Korea, finding something to wear definitely gave the creative juices a workout. I wanted a clever costume that cost almost nothing: thus my idea to be a mummy with gauze costing a little less than a quarter a roll.

The subway ride downtown was entertaining. Koreans do not celebrate Halloween at all...so there I was, wrapped up like a burn victim with crazy eye makeup, next to Amanda who was channeling Daisy Duke from Dukes of Hazard under the oh so unforgiving harshness of fluorescent lighting.There are already Christmas trees up in the subway!

It was a stellar night with some of the funniest and off-the-wall costumes I have ever seen. For example, there were the lost Canadian backpackers. They had these massive hiking back packs adorned with Canadian flags and kept pushing through the crowd, guidebooks in hand, asking for directions in Fargo-inspired accents. I also saw a guy dressed as Wolverine with metal chopsticks taped to his hands, MC Hammer (a token black guy with parachute pants), the entire bad guy lineup from Mortal Kombat and my personal favorite: the lesbian lumberjacks (pictures below).

Class class.

The remnants of my mummy costume at the end of the night.


SJ and I are quite the trailblazers. On Sunday, we decided to spend some quality time together and hike Apsan Mountain. I asked her what "Apsan" means, and she said it means the "nearby mountain". So, people in Daegu have nicknamed it the "close and familiar" mountain because it pretty much rests up against metropolitan Daegu.


Look at all the families nestled amongst the trees, picnicking.

Every day on the subway, when we reach Seongso (my stop) and I leave to go to the gym after class, SJ tells me to "Keep it tight." When I asked her what she does for exercise, she mentioned yoga because it helps her feel firm "and not squish." Now, many, many times when we talk I pick up on these hitches with the English language, but "feeling squish" was just too good to pass up. I explained that she is feeling "squishy" and it's now our power mantra during hikes. She was pretty tired when I took this picture, but like a drill sergeant I started shouting at her to "fight the squishy" so she jogged the rest of the way up with me. I am so proud!
54 degrees. brrr.
She says I am the devil because I make her work so hard.

This was impressive! This man had a monopoly on the popsicle market being that he is the only guy crazy enough to haul dry ice, popsicles and a backpack full of loose change up to the top of a mountain.

My schedule for November is jam-packed full of nonstop traveling, so the blog will be updated whenever I get a spare moment. Expect great things!

Downtown Daegu and Maegok Madness

Dollar General would make a fortune here in Korea. Why? Because Koreans are absolutely bonkers about spending money on large quantities of useless things. Tae Kwon Do may be the "official" pastime of Korea, but I am telling you now that shopping is the greatest thrill for Koreans of every age.

Exhibit A: While quietly minding my p's and q's on the subway, alternating between observing my shoelaces and closing my eyes to avoid the inquisitive stare down, a man with a rickety 4-wheeled cart saunters in, dressed in a cheap suit with a wrinkled, soggy-looking cardboard box precariously perched on the wheeling contraption. The instant the subway doors snap closed, he begins rattling off his spiel in a loud, infomercial announcer voice. He's selling, for a limited time only (limited because he will be escorted off the subway soon by Daegu Metro employees), special indestructible (unless dropped, banged or mishandled in any way) nut cracking scissors! He produces a chestnut and a walnut from his pocket and de-shells them quicker than you can blink. Glancing around, no one seems particularly moved my these miraculous scissors. And yet, you can see the desire to BuyBuyBuy welling up in these people. What if, at some unforeseeable time, they find themselves in need of these marvelous scissors? God forbid they should have to crack those future nuts by hand. So people begin to rifle through their purses and pockets, collecting the 4,990 won ($4.99!) to purchase the scissors. The man sells 7 pairs before the subway train stops, the doors open, and an exasperated Metro employee in a tan jumpsuit herds the salesman off the train.

Other bargains I have seen are special coarse scrubbing sponges with the pattern of the Korean flag printed on them, "Golden Oldies" CDs (This is a man who walks in and turns on a boombox perched on his shoulder and subjects passengers to 5 minute intervals of songs from The Carpenters) and a "blind" woman peddling chewing gum and FDA-approved cutting boards.

Once you exit the subway, the deluge of shopping opportunities doesn't stop. Most subway stops are two levels underground, the lowest level being where the train receives passengers, the next level for shopping and then eventually you get above ground. The middle floor is a labyrinth of cheap shops ranging from accessories stores (oodles of cheap earrings, flimsy belts and leggings, leggings, leggings), imitation leather stores all the way to belly dancing stores. At first, I thought these belly dancing stores were costume shops until I noticed that they only carry sequin-encrusted bras and bejeweled skirts. Apparently, belly dancing is a craze that was swept the nation, and women are flocking to these stores to buy turquoise, fuchsia and canary yellow wispy belly-dancing costumes to wear to their classes. Juxtapose this to the fact that a bikini is regarded as the swimsuit of a harlot (it's one pieces all the way here). It makes no sense!

Above ground, things get considerably more expensive. In Downtown Daegu, the streets are crammed with designer stores including Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Coach, Dolce and Gabbana and all the other top name brands. Wedged in between these powerhouse names are artsy boutiques that will charge 500,000 won for a scarf the size and texture of my dish towels.

And it's loud. The closest I can come to helping you get the picture is this: have you ever been to Disney or whatever theme park and suddenly been engulfed in a pack of Asian tourists? Deafening, right? Imagine that times 10. Add the constant clacking of heels, honking of taxis, the pulsing uhn-tiss of dance and techno music pumping out from overhead speakers, food cart vendors hollering on taped up megaphones, cell phone store employees grabbing you by the shoulder to steer you towards the latest widget and phone contract.... it's chaos!

At home, spending a day perusing the mall was often just to people watch. Rarely did I buy much because 1.) fashion is not a priority for me and 2.) it's so damn expensive. Maybe some Dippin' Dots, but that's the extent of my shopping. I'll spend my money on plane tickets and good food, thank you. But in Korea, the people are saddled down with oodles of bags. During one of our Korea vs. America conversations, SJ explained to me that shopping, whether it be for winter boots or a few fresh pig bellies from the food market to grill for dinner, is like a sport in Korea. There is a lot of walking and heavy lifting. You grow breathless haggling with the store owner, trying to finagle the price lower. You barrel into crowds elbowing and contorting to pluck the best merchandise from racks and boxes the moment it is brought out. And then, when the day is done and you have 32 plastic and paper bags dangling from your limbs, giving you the appearance of a human Christmas tree, you get to brag. THAT is what Koreans truly love.

Korean woman 1: "Last Saturday I found these shoes for just 12,000 won at Seomun Market. They were the last pair in red and the guy wanted 24,000 for them."

Korean woman 2: "Oh really? See, because I found those same shoes, in red, with rhinestone encrusted shoelaces for 11,000 won. I had to bargain with the shopkeeper for 3 hours before they gave in."

Korean woman 1: "Well I got a matching silk scarf as part of the deal, and I only had to bargain for 2 hours and bribe the shopkeeper with my lunch."

You get the idea. Fashion and bargaining prowess are King in Korea.

At Maegok, Swine Flu mania has finally caught on. At first, all I noticed were spray bottle of alcohol placed on short tables at all the entrances (there is a picture of a pig face, sneezing by the bottles). Then there was a school field trip cancelled by the Principle for fear of transmission of the flu bug among the students. Yesterday, Jay (my mentor teacher), stood next to me and began to heatedly whisper in a conspiratorial tone that one of his students had a fever and he needed to drive them to the hospital immediately to check if it was indeed swine flu. I will find out today whether it was Swine Flu or just a cold, but the fear in that man's eyes! Goodness!

More and more of my students are coming to class sporting face masks, so it looks like I am educating the next wave of painters for Korea. While I definitely think the hype over Swine Flu is bogus, it doesn't stop me from bathing in hand sanitizer at lunch time or treating the kid's name tags and workbooks like vessels of the plague. I think I will plan a lesson on hygiene...

Click HERE for a video of my students trying to give me a new hairdo. After all this touching, I was positive that I would catch the funk but I am still one of the only TaLKers who has not gotten ill yet, knock on wood.


I am very comfortable with my daily routine in classes. My students know my temper too, and have learned the difference between a warning tone of voice and the "Oh shit, teacher Katy is gonna go ballistic" tone. Since next week is Halloween, I have been hyping up my students for all the fun things I have planned for them. I have scary videos (where things jumo out and scare you), coloring games with pictures of witches, pumpkins and ghosts, Halloween-themed Bingo, and about 5 tupperware boxes filled to the brim with expensive, imported M&Ms to divvy out as prizes alongside Snickers and Twix bars. For the M&Ms, the students all have to guess, in English, how many pieces of chocolate are in the container. They will write their guesses in complete sentences on paper, put them in my Jacko'lantern trick or treat pail and the winner gets the whole container! It's a lesson on big numbers in English in disguise.

One of my most successful ideas has been the sticker reward system. Students earn stickers for doing homework, participating in class and just for being exceptionally cute and/or in need of cheering up (Teacher Katy has been known to give out stickers and candy to make an upset 1st grader smile again).

Here is the reward system.
And here are some of the sticker charts. As you can see, I have quite the little overachievers. The most popular reward so far is the "Terrific Kid" certificate. It's printed on thick, expensive paper with the Maegok Letterhead on top. I write particular accolades for the student in flowery, run-on English and sign the certificate. They LOVE these, and often I will have parents come in and thank me in Korean for recognizing their kid. In fact, sometimes it's hard not to feel like a celebrity sometimes when my 10 minute walk to campus every day feels more like a strut down the cat walk or like a scene from a Disney musical. People lean out of their windows to shout down a greeting. Shopkeepers wave from behind their counters and women pushing strollers and bicycling children match my pace just so they can walk beside me, smile and stare. God forbid I should have a booger or trip one day...the entire city would probably hear about it in the news.


Remember the post called "A Day In The Life"? Well, that fruit vendor who peddles up and down my neighborhood has taken to driving at night too. So the hollering never ceases! Walking back form the gym one night, I managed to turn my camera on for a few seconds to video him. He was giving me a very suspicious glare over the steering wheel, so I couldn't film for long. Click HERE to catch a glimpse of obnoxious fruit vendor dude.

Also, here are some funny photos of moments that appealed to my sense of humor about town:
How is this store not being sued?

Forget euphemistic names that conceal diet products true nature- Koreans are very blunt. They disdain fat people, so there are walls and walls of drinkable concoctions that tout the ability to melt the fat right off you!

Busan Annual Fireworks Festival

My toes are purple and crushed-looking. That's what I get for wearing flip flops to a fireworks show in Korea, where women change heels like underwear.

At 11:30 Saturday morning, my friend Amanda (the red-head from Texas) and I boarded a train for Busan again. We rode on the mugunghwa train, which is the slow and decrepit, nearly-retired albeit cheaper train. I brought a book (my last of 8 that I brought with me- I am out of English books now) but I didn't read because it was so entertaining to watch all the cheapskate ajummas pilfering seats the whole ride long. It would go like this: the train car would be filled to the brim with passengers. Clearly, the ajummas either purchased "standing" tickets or flat out boarded the train without tickets because each time an employee walked past they would slink into the corner, trying to appear busy. The moment a paying passenger left, they would swarm the seat like vultures, flapping and squawking at each other, jostling around until a victorious ajumma would plunk down in her MC Hammer parachute pants with a satisfied grin until she would be shooed out 5 minutes later by the next passenger with the rightful ticket to that seat. On second thought, ever seen the movie "Finding Nemo"? Just think of the flock of seagulls all chanting "mine" over and over again....

Since we enjoyed it so much last time, we decided to spend another day at Spaland, this time bringing Amanda along. It was very relaxing, with only one hiccup: Amanda fainted coming out of the sauna. The moment she closed the door, her pupils began dilating and contracting and I could tell she was going down. She went limp and it was a good thing Eunice and I were on either side of her because we caught her before she smacked into a row of wooden cubbyholes. After some fanning and several bottles of water she was revived, and we decided to grab a bite to eat before heading towards the baths. A traditional Korean Summer food is this concoction called "patbingsu," which is gone from restaurants now because the weather is considered too cold. However, Spaland continues serving it all year long because of the steamy sauna setting. Koreans believe that the temperature of food is just as important as the ingredients, so you often find cold and chilled dishes in the hot months and bubbling, inferno-hot dishes in the chilly months.

Patbingsu is one of the things I will miss most from Korea. It's a bowl full of delicate shaved ice with heaps of sweet red beans (the size of tic-tacs), jellied fruits (pineapple and mango mostly), bananas and strawberries or some combination of fresh fruit, sweetened condensed milk and maybe a scoop of fro-yo or ice cream. Many restaurants will also garnish with cornflakes or some small candies. Sound gross? Trust me- Patbingsu is the ambrosia of Korea. It gets all soupy and intensely sweet when mixed together and, like all Korean food, is meant to be shared. I got my own because I'm a pig... and I ate it all.
This was not the patbingsu we ordered (just a photo from the internet) but it gives you the general idea of what patbingsu looks like.

We ended up lingering until almost 7p.m. at the spa, which was two hours past the original plan. The "spa fog" of warmth and relaxation quickly dissipated once we were outside in the 50ish degree weather, jostling around in crowds of people stretching as far as the eye could see. Busan was inundated with visitors because the Fireworks Festival is ranked as one of the top in the world. Luckily, my mighty Amazon stature (compared to Koreans, at least) saved the day because I was parting the crowd like Moses did the Red Sea. 1 jarring, jostling and mildly combative hour later, we were ocean-side, with a decent view of the water where the fireworks show would be held. The theme this year was "Busan: A love Story," although I never would have guessed from the choice of music.

The soundtrack to the fireworks included "Do-Re-Mi" from he Sound of Music, "Black or White" from Michael Jackson, some old Elvis jams and the battle music from Braveheart. While the music made me laugh, some of the fireworks were truly spectacular. Whereas every fireworks explosion I have seen usually fades after a few moments (maybe with he exception of the golden trails of sparks from the "weeping willow" fireworks), there were bursts that lingered for several minutes in the sky at this show, floating down towards the water and eventually extinguishing with a little "hiss" sound. Then there was the bird. This green, red and blue fireworks bird zoomed around the air for about 2 minutes before igniting into a flaming phoenix, continuing it's circles above the crowd. I have never seen such creative shapes in fireworks either, form daisies to hearts, smiley faces and even the green outline of a squatting frog.

Two instances of "Weird Korea" moments: 1.) You could be at a Baptism in America and SOMEONE is going to let loose a "whoooooo!" of excitement. It can't be helped, we like cheering for everything. But in Korea, during a FIREWORKS show, the most I heard were some stifled "oohs" and "aahs". It was eerily quiet and all the Korean spectators seemed to be transfixed and borderline emotional after the show. Sniffling, smiling like they just watched their kid win the National Spelling Bee or something... it was strange. 2.) I took photos of the gobs of litter blowing about on the streets after the crowd began filtering out. Mid-photo, an elderly Korean man began waving his hand in front of the lens, shaking his head and acting highly indignant and agitated. Eunice explained that he was ordering me not to take photos of the trashed pavement because I would show them to friends and give Korea a poor reputation among foreigners. When I took another picture, I thought he was going to blow up so we had to hightail it outta there before he decided to do more than just yell.
Here is a pic of the streets after the show, moments before old man hand came crashing down over the lens.

Walking to the shore to get a better view
These are blurry because I was taking them while being hustled along by the herd of people pouring through the streets. This is a typical rice/popcorn snack cart. They sell these massive bags full of rice cakes, sweetened puffed corn and fried rice chips.
"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." Chestnuts are a Korean fav for snack food in the chillier months.
Kimbap (Korean version of sushi). Asian fast food.
Whole, dried squid is another popular snack item. It tastes like delicious, salty seafood jerky.



It was a madhouse trying to get to the train station on time to catch my ride back to Daegu. The police closed down several subway stops because of overcrowding (numerous people were trampled) and the streets were clogged with cars are scooters, making a taxi out of the question. So we ran. Far. It took half an hour to run far enough on foot to get to an open subway. Once underground, it was pure pandemonium trying to skirt the ticket lines and jostle and elbow our way into as subway car. Luckily, Eunice's boyfriend was with us and had a genius idea to take the subway to a different stop than Busan Station, which was surely overrun with latecomers trying like Hell to catch their trains. So we went to some small station that was desolate, and like magic, our train pulled in the moment we arrived. We made it back to Daegu at around midnight, which is too late to catch the subway so I ended up paying hefty cab fare to get to my apartment, but it was worth it to see the insanity of the Busan Fireworks Festival.

On Sunday, Amanda and I spent the day leisurely flitting in and out of local stores in Downtown Daegu. It was a riot trying on Korean clothing. Most pants would not come past my knees and my shoulders were apparently too broad for even the "2X" size shirts. In Korea, 90% of the clothing is tagged as "One size fits all". I think there needs to be a disclaimer that reads "Except non-Koreans" directly underneath because none of my fellow TaLKers have had much success with Korean clothing.

As I have mentioned, tattoos and piercings are uncommon in Korea, so when we happened upon a "piercing boutique." we went inside just to see if it was legitimate. Apparently, a professional tattoo and piercing artist in Korea can get by with a crusty jar of petroleum jelly, some medieval piercing needles soaking in tepid tap water and a stack of store brand band-aids. Blood-borne illness-no thanks!

Busan International Film Festival and Spaland

Lately, people have been calling me "the camel." Each weekend, I don my bulging red backpack, which causes me to hunch over at the waist, and I double-fist water bottles like it's happy hour in Gainesville before a home game.

I was particularly bulky on this past weekend's excursion because I was loaded down with bedding (2 blankets and my overstuffed, fuchsia pillow), backpack, a pendulous bag of food, my purse and my camera. As if being a foreigner doesn't draw enough attention, try getting stuck in a subway turnstile entrance because your enormous pink pillow snagged. Ug...

Since everyone was short on money from our blowout Chuseok weekend, we decided to take up the offer from a friend to stay at his apartment. However, with one double-sized bed and 7 people to put up for the night, most of us were sleeping on the floor. It was cramped, but at least the price was right. At around 9 on Saturday morning, I sat up with a crick in my neck and had to laugh at the 6 other bodies splayed out all across the floor. the bare floor. People were sleeping with their jackets rolled up for pillows, still dressed in their clothes from the night before. I am perpetually the early riser, so I had to wait another hour and half before the rest of the group was coherent enough to even form words. Moods brightened once we took a chilly walk to a Starbucks and loaded up on Venti coffees. An item on the Korean Starbuck's menu that I think is worth mentioning is the jelly coffee. Imagine your typical iced coffee loaded down with sugar and cream and big, blobby lumps of grape or strawberry jelly wallowing around in the bottom of the cup. Sound disgusting? I can assure you it's quite delicious. If you just get past the image of bloated red and purple slugs sloshing around the bottom of your drink, it's a great flavor combination, especially when you mix the jelly bits throughout. I wonder if it will ever catch on in America?
Across form our table, a Korean girl was creating these intricate roses out of Starbucks napkins. I have no such skill, so I made a straw wrapper into a cheesy mustache instead.
The idea for the day was to get in line for the 14th International Busan Film Festival for tickets to one of the rave review, independent films. However, by the time we arrived (around 3pm) all of the tickets were sold out except for two movies: "The Enlightenment Film" and "PilgrIMAGE". The "Enlightenment" film analyzed political views in a post modern world. Yuck. So we chose PilgrIMAGE, which was a movie made by a father-daughter duo, which revolved around visiting the homes and filming locations of famous directors. The movie was at 8:30pm on the other side of town, so we decided to go and grab a bite while we were wasting time. Max, the guy whose apartment we were staying at, suggested a place called "The Fuzzy Navel," which is possibly the only Mexican restaurant in the entire country.

The city of Busan is the second largest in Korea, and is very industrial, with factories and sky-rise buildings crammed right up to the beach. In Korea, THE quintessential beach to visit is called Hyundae Beach, which was where "The Fuzzy Navel" was conveniently located. A Mexican restaurant on the beach sounds like a promising combination, right? Well, I was not dissapointed upon first walking up. The restaurant was blasting 90s alternative and rock music (Think Red Hot Chili Peppers, Audioslave, The GooGoo Dolls, etc.) and I could see tortillas on people's plates, not to mention that the place appeared to be a foreigner magnet. We ran into several people from orientation who were there for the film festival, too.

I ordered a taco salad, excited at the prospect of eating guacamole since avocados are so difficult to find in Korea. 20 minutes passed, then 40...then we were up to an hour waiting for our various orders of tacos, burritos and nachos. Now Mexican food is by no means a delicacy or that difficult to throw together, so I'm not sure what on earth took so long. When the server finally started dropping off our food, we were all sorely dissapointed at the limp, tasteless tortillas, the guacamole without a trace of salt or garlic and the salsa that (swear to God) must have been concocted out of ketchup. So much for Mexican food in Korea. And to add insult to injury, it was one of the most expensive meals I have eaten so far in Korea. Lesson learned: Mexican food does not exist in Korea.
The Spanish is soooo wrong on this menu. Word of advice if you have never traveled internationally before: be suspicious of translated menus. English on a menu means the prices are considerably jacked up because the restaurant is catering to foreigners.


After eating, we headed out to Hyundae Beach. From the various descriptions I've heard of the beach, I was expecting a white shoreline that extended as far as I could see, dotted with families spreading out beach blankets and picnicking and playing frisbee in the waves. Basically, I was thinking of Florida. Something you must grasp about South Korea though: it is a tiny country. North America is a vast and varied continent with a kaleidoscope of geographies ranging from beaches, to mountains, to prairie land, desert, etc. Korea is only as big as some of our larger states, so I was shocked to see that this famous tourist beach was only maybe 3 or 4 miles long. People were packed like sardines along the dunes and no one was in the water because it was just so damn cold. My Korean friends tell me that in the summer it's so crowded that it's risky to leave your beach chair for even a moment at the risk of losing it to some pushy foreigners or desperate Korean family looking for a patch of sand to call their own. With mid 60 degree weather though, the beach crowd was thinning, so we staked out an empty patch of damp sand and watched the moviegoers intermingling with the few Koreans who had picked the wrong day to go beach-combing.
This was a self-portrait of the artist.

We watched the sun dip beneath the horizon and huddled closer and closer as the rays began to fade. Getting to crunch some sand between my toes was a pleasant reminder of beach days back home, and I saw a few die-hard Korean kids rolling around in the tide with purple lips and chattering teeth, building sand castles only to stomp them down moments later, laughing maniacally. Once again, children are the same wherever you go on this planet.

Juxtapose me next to these typical young Korean women and the stark contrast in fashion is laughable. Korean women are always dressed to the nines while I look like an bohemian bum the majority of the time. It was hard not to laugh though as their stilettos aerated the sand, winding tracks of dime-sized heel holes all over the place.
Relaxing and people-watching.
Weird Korea: This is the Korean Squat. From toddlers to 90-year-old ajummas, all Koreans practice the squat. Maybe it's out of habit from the squat toilets that are common all across the country (even in a McDonalds you have the choice between a squat toilet or a "Western" toilet. It's funny to see how long the line is to the Western toilet and all the foreigners and young, trendy Korean ladies waiting eons to go while the squat toilets are always open, always being used by older Koreans.) You see the squat wherever you go. Waiting for the bus in the heart of metropolitan Seoul? Drop a squat. In a fancy department store waiting for the salesperson to bring out your size 245 Manolo Blahnik shoes? Drop a squat. While it's more common for the older Koreans to squat whenever and wherever, the younger generations can't seem to fight the habit. When it's 6 in the morning and the clubs are winding down, when people are exhausted from drinking and dancing and are waiting for a cab to pull up, it's quite a scene to see all these drooping, squatting 20-something Koreans, hunkered up against the buildings, squatting just like their grandmas selling produce on the street corners. I love it!
Eventually, we had to scoop ourselves up form the sand and take a bus to the movie theater where the film festival was being hosted. The theater was only half-filled (like I said, we had to chose from the remaining dregs as far as our film selection went) and the director was actually standing down by the screen, shuffling from foot to foot as the technicians bumbled around with the roll of film up in the projection booth. This guy was memorable too. I'd venture a guess that he weighed in at nearly 400 pounds and was sporting 2 lazy eyes and 3 chins. The film itself was poorly acted, but mildly entertaining because many of the locations they filmed, I have visited (Rome, Lucerne in Switzerland, Alaska...). The father and daughter are from Canada, and set out to visit the home of Charles Chaplin, the filming locale for "The Sound of Music" and even stopped by Kansas to put in a word about "The Wizard of Oz". It was cheesy, but we were all weary from travel and scarfing down shrimp rice chips (the snack food of choice in Korea) and were too tired to care.

On Sunday, I awoke before everyone else again, but decided to let them sleep in until at least 10. The initial plan was to visit a fish market and have a big sashimi lunch before heading back home to Daegu, but we were sidetracked when we decided to head to the Shinsegae department store. Shinsegae is the largest department store in the world. It is directly on a subway stop, so you can actually get on the subway, travel to the 1st floor (which is underground) of Shinsegae, spend all day exploring the stores and attractions and never see the light of day. Shinsegae is a world onto itself with lux food courts (we are talking gourmet food, made to order), restaurants, a Whole Foods grocery store, clothing stores, pet stores, a movie theater, driving range, sky park, ice rink, spa and arcade (to name a FEW things)... We stopped to get coffee, but ended up lingering for 6 hours.

By then, our group had been reduced to just Max, Shaina, Eunice and I. Shaina and Max wanted to go ice skating, but I thought it was a ripoff because you had to rent skates, buy gloves and then pay for two hours of mindless circling around a slushy ice rink inundated with little kids being filmed and hollered at by their parents. Eunice and I decided to go to Spaland: the public bath on the first floor of Shinsegae. Obviously, I could not take photos in a public bath, so I will largely have to depend on my powers of description to express how amazing I find the bathing culture in Korea.

The public bath is one of the few remaining unchanged traditions in Korea. Most Koreans, women and men, go at least once every week to clean, visit with friends and family and just enjoy being together. The public bath is the old time porch-sitting days of America. Just naked...

The Korean word for these bath houses is "JimJil Bang," and is usually recognizable by a picture of a semi-circle bowl with steam wisps curling upward from the rim. These places are very cheap (ranging from 4,000 to 12,000 won depending on the services you buy) and include saunas of varying temperatures, hot and cold bathing pools and body scrub and massage services.

When you first enter a jim jil bang, you take of your shoes and put them in an assigned locker (standard- you never wear shoes indoors in Korea). Then you are sent to your assigned locker in either the men or women's portion of the Jim Jil Bang. The moment you cross through that curtain, it's like being flung into a nudist colony. The spa provides some loose-fitting clothes for the sauna (think what you would wear to get an x-ray), but you are butt-naked when you head to the bathing pools to scrub and wash. The saunas were relaxing. With about 12 different rooms in all, Spaland had sweltering charcoal-heated rooms, rooms with tanks full of jellyfish bobbing around, "magnetized" rooms, sound-therapy rooms which had deep, reverberating bass playing underneath the floorboards and even cold rooms, which were meant to cool you off after the baking hot sauna rooms. Once you have sweated sufficiently, it's time to bathe. You strip down, carrying only a hand towel and whatever necessities (conditioner, lotion, razers) you need and head into one massive room filled with naked girls and women of every age and body type, dipping in and out of various heated-pools before plopping down on a footstool to scrub the dead skin off eachother. As I write this, I can imagine your shock at something like this, but I must press a point here: this is one of the best experiences you can have in Korea if you really want to see how this culture operates. I saw entire family trees from great-grandmothers all the way down to the youngest little girls splashing around in the pools, combing each other's hair and just relaxing. In korea, there is a special rough-tectured towel known as the "Italy" towel that every single Korean uses to bath with. When you soak for long enough in the pools, it makes your skin soggy and pliable. The Italy towel is meant to be used all over, and the harder you scrub, the more skin you will see pilling off your body like an old skin sweater. And it's BLACK. I was so grossed out that I scrubbed until my whole body stung just because I wanted to get as much off as possible. Since it's nearly impossible to scrub your own back, that's why it is good to go with friends and family. I saw many endearing moments between grandmother's and their daughter's, giving each other a scrub down and just chatting away.

After removing a whole layer of skin, we went to the shower stalls and washed and then went into the "powder" rooms to blow dry our hair and toss on our sauna clothes to go get massages. The whole day was simply divine, and I walked out feeling as limber as a wet noodle. unfortunately, Shaina and Max did not have an equally enjoyable day. About 15 minutes into their ice-skating experience, Max crashed to the floor, splitting his chin open on the ice. He was rushed to the emergency room where he had to get multiple stitches and a prescription for penicillin. The bill was about 160,000 won, which was the last of his money for the month. Needless to say, it was like walking into Hell's gaping maw when Eunice and I fluttered out of the spa in a wave of shampoo-smell and smiles. The rest of the evening was a quiet one, and I felt a little guilty for sitting so relaxed and content the whole train ride home while Shaina was sending silent death glares our way.

All in all though, a very enjoyable weekend for me. In fact, I believe I will be returning to Spaland this weekend when I visit Busan again for a different festival. All I know for sure is I am not going anywhere near the ice rink.

Chuseok Weekend

NOTE:

This is a somewhat risque post. Sorry if it offends anyone, but the tale of this past weekend cannot be told any other way!


I just fit a good 20% chunk of my overall most ridiculous and memorable lifetime experiences into one nonstop weekend that centered around a handful of other girls and I traversing Korea from the bottom up.

Let me begin:

Thursday, all the children in my class were dressed in their traditional Chuseok clothing called "hanbok." Hanbok are very colorful pants and dresses (bright pastels) made out of silk that only appear during the Chuseok (and sometimes New Year) holidays. "Chuseok" is Korean Thanksgiving. It's a large meal with family to celebrate the coming of the harvest season replete with all sorts of traditional food and after-dinner activities (think going for a hike instead of watching football on t.v.). Although SJ invited me to join her family for the holiday, I wanted to make the most out of the extended weekend and travel while Koreans were busy with their families.A little girl who wanted to take a picture with me while we were waiting for our bus. She is wearing a relatively plain hanbok to give you an idea of how ornate they can be.

After finishing my classes on Thursday, I jogged to the subway and hustled to my apartment to fix some dinner and stuff some last minute items into my 20-ton backpack for the road... or train rather. In Korea, if you are traveling to another city, the more refined mode of transportation is the train. The "KTX" is the railroad system in Korea, and they offer a range of ticket choices from straight up standing in the accordionish rubber area that connects train cars to first class, luxury leather seats that lay flat like beds. First class is upward of 100,000 won though, so we cheaped out and opted for the standing tickets. I had a wet butt for a solid hour because I was lucky to get a "seat" on top of the sink in between cars on one train ride. However, our first train ride was to Seoul and we thankfully purchased the tickets in advance and had a little section of 4 seats all to ourselves. Shaina, Eunice, Amanda (from Texas), Nicole (New Zealand) and myself were tuckered out when we arrived in Seoul (at 8:45pm), so a hotel was the biggest priority on our list. We hailed a cab, which took us to a hotel district close to downtown.
One of many train rides. Traveling like true hobos.

So this next sentence won't startle you, let me preface it by saying that Koreans live with their families until they are married. Also, since most Koreans live in apartments or very small, single-room houses, it makes privacy a scarce commodity. So: The gang and I stayed the night in a love hotel. They pepper the narrow streets, wedged in between apartments, behind the businesses that are crowded on the main roads. All of them offer hourly rates and advertise with Las Vegas style neon lights. There are themed love hotels (think jungle room with putt-putt golf course grass instead of carpet, medieval, ocean, dessert, etc.), automated love hotels (no embarrassment when the only witness to your rendezvous is an LCD touch screen), ritzy love hotels that offer expansive flats, Western beds and marble floors...the list goes on and on. We chose to stay at one of the first places we encountered: The Santafe hotel.
See-through window into the bathroom. As Shaina pointed out, there must have been a certain strategy in mind because the beds were always pushed up against the bathroom wall as opposed to the wall you share with your neighbor.
Condom baseball.
Getting cozy. There was a watermelon-sized bottle of lotion and a box of tissues on the bedside stand. When we flipped on the TV, we discovered why.

Too tired to rouse ourselves for clubbing, we had a fun night in laughing at our sleazy accommodations. On Friday morning, we struck out to find some coffee before heading for the subway. However, we soon realized that everything was closed for Chuseok save McDonalds and Burger King. So, we chose McDonalds because it was 5 feet closer, dropped our piles and piles of bags and ate granola bars and drank McCafe coffees.
My crew. From left to right: Shaina, Eunice, Nicole and Amanda.
A rice paddy! These are everywhere in Korea. Any other time you would see old people squatting down low amid the rice, weeding and tending. But because of Chuseok, the rice fields were empty.
No wonder I have an aching back!

Our first destination was a place Shaina found online called "River Land" in Cheongnyangni (very far north). The Web site pitched River Land as the ultimate water sports and thrill-seeking experience in Korea. One man with a red lawn chair perched on an inflatable boat does not a speedboat make, but I will come to that. As it turns out, River Land was situated on the outskirts of a very rural town that was all but abandoned for the holidays. Walking through the empty streets, I got a glimpse of true country bumpkin Korean life. Rice paddies, straw-roofed houses, foreign roots and mushrooms drying on sheets in the sun, laundry strung up between trees and mangy looking dogs tied to posts in the driveway standing on guard as we passed. 4 subway lines, 1 train ride a bus and a taxi later, we found ourselves on the bank of an enormous, pristine river that wound around the mountains like a watery snake and put me in mind of some of the boating I have done in Tennessee, only on a much grander scale. The hotel we stayed in (Hannam Hotel) was right on the water, and we haggled pretty ferociously with the owner to let all 5 of us board in one room. But what a view! Our room overlooked the water and even had a bathtub (quite the rarity in Korea).

Wandering through the deserted streets of a tiny town, searching for a bus stop. This was right about the moment when we realized "River Land" was probably not going to meet to our high theme park expectations. Luckily, it turned out to be even better :)

One of the main reasons we decided to venture all the way up to River Land is because of the bungee jumping that is offered on site. The bungee tower is some 100-feet above the water and juts out into the river, giving you a spectacular view of the mountains right before you take that petrifying leap. Anyone who knows me should know that I am no daredevil... but I am also not above peer pressure. Somehow my damnable crew managed to convince me that my trip to Korea would not be complete unless I experienced a jolt of adrenaline by leaping off a building, attached to said building by the ankles. Fast forward: there I am, shivering despite the radiating, setting sun, precariously close to the edge of a steep drop down to the frigid water below. My toes were curled around the metal platform like fingers, my brain screaming at me to "ABORT: CHOOSE LIFE" I was up there for a solid 10 minutes, crying, snotting and begging the bungee operator-man to let me back down. He continued to refuse (bungee jump operators are NOT nice people) until finally he relented when I had reached the point of wailing. He acted all pissy as he began to unhook the bungee cord, and I caught a few VERY impolite words in Korean. Indignant, I told him to put the cord back on immediately, gave him the most scathing look I could muster despite my teary eyes and jumped head first off the platform, screaming bloody murder. The thing about bungee cords: they are incredibly springy. A forceful leap means an even more abrupt snap back upwards, flinging your body like a ragdoll... All the muscles in my neck ache as I write this, and several blood spots have appeared under my eyes from the force of the cord whipping me around. It felt like I was dangling there like bait on a line for an eternity until a little old man on a red lawn chair in an inflatable boat rowed out and steadied me, laying me down on the floor of the boat and paddled me to shore.

Hannam Hotel in Cheongnyangni.


Our room
The view from our room's balcony.
The beastly bungee tower.
I was white as a sheet with a jackhammer pulse. There are two options when bungee jumping: jump with a harness around your hips or attached to your ankles. Jumping with only your ankles tied is more expensive because it's a greater risk. However, many bungee enthusiasts believe that jumping with a waist harness is like getting skin number for a tattoo: you are cheapening the experience. So, I decided to just suck it up and go opt for the ankles.
Supermaaaaan!
Seconds away from bouncing back up.

As you are lowered towards the water, you are in a constant spiral. I was about to throw up, so I kept shouting "faster, Boat Man, faster." It was rude, but a second more and a cyclone of puke would have been raining down upon him. The girls love to make fun of me by shouting "Faster, Boat Man" now whenever they see me.
After bungee jumping, the girls and I were invited to go on a sunset cruise on what can only be described as a yacht. It was glorious, dangerous and freezing cold. Worth every moment!

Look closely and you will see pinpricks of blood under and around my eyes. When the line went fully taught, I saw this explosion of white across my vision, which turned out to be several little blood vessels bursting. Apparently, it's a common occurrence after bungee jumping, and I just hope they fade away with time.


After the sunset cruise, the same group of men took us out to a Galbi restaurant, which is Korean for a "meat" restaurant. These are some of the most expensive places to eat since they serve thick slabs of raw pork and beef that you cook over a metal grill in the center of your table. Luckily, they had seafood bibimbap, so I didn't go hungry. The meal was probably around 200-300 dollars all told after multiple rounds of soju were added to the bill. Since it was only 8pm when we finished eating, we decided to head back to their hotel, which was conveniently next door to the Hannam Hotel. Now I am not in the habit of carousing with middle-aged men, strangers at that. But we outnumbered them 5 to 3, and I was keeping a sharp eye on all of them the whole evening, on the lookout for shady and expectant behavior. Thankfully, I can report that there are still respectable people in the world. We had a great night watching Korean comedy shows on TV, comparing accents, political views, drinking preferences, everything... We ended up leaving without any trouble at around 3 in the morning to walk back to our hotel, pack and get ready for bed. Or maybe I should say get ready for floor?

Asian people love to make strange faces whenever you take a picture. This guy's English nickname was "Leno". He spoke the best English out of the group because he is a Harley Davidson dealer and his primary clientele are American soldiers (go figure). There were two other men: a dentist and then the man who funded our whole evening. The wealthy guy happens to own a hotel on Jeju island, the tiny island off the southern coast of Korea famous for it's beautiful waterfalls and panoramic vistas of the ocean. All of them were relatively unattached with no family to spend time with for the Chuseok holiday, so I think we made it a memorable weekend for them.
Another Korean quirk: This is how they open a bag of chips.
Keep in mind this feast was after our humongous dinner. Whereas you may get a handful of stale peanuts or pretzels in the States, Koreans like to drink in style. This spread included fried chicken, corn salad, fruit, chips, steamed dumplings and to celebrate Chuseok: Pine needle rice cakes, which have been steamed over pine needles and taste like you are eating a forest. Beneath that stack of apples is a large gold-colored fruit. This is a Korean pear. They are just as crispy as an apple but with pear flavor, and they are the pride and joy of Koreans because you can only get them in Korea.
Back in the hotel, gossiping and laughing uncontrollably over the good fortune of our evening.

Saturday was actually Chuseok day, so everything was quiet. We got up early to catch a taxi ride into town to catch a train back to Seoul. Flipping through a guide book, I discovered a national park directly on the outskirts of Seoul called Bhukansan National Park. We were sore from bungee jumping, aching from sleeping on the floor and just damned tired from so little sleep, but the mantra for my stay in Korea is "You may only be here once", so we packed our bags and headed back toward Seoul to hike in the glorious weather.
Example of strange Konglish. Ever seen these options at your local Starbucks?
Shuffling from one mode of transportation to the next is immensely time consuming. One thing I am beginning to miss is the luxury of hopping into my car and taking a direct route to my destination. Subways, buses, taxis and walking are cheap and better for the environment, but it can take a whole day to travel 50 miles. Seoul is one of the most convoluted and imposing subway systems I have ever seen, so we did not reach the national park until around 4:30, meaning we had to book it or we'd be hiking in failing light.

Koreans will take a nap absolutely anywhere.

Being all Buddhist again ;)
Have I mentioned my aching back enough?

It was a beautiful ending to the day with the whole mountain side lit up the color of butter from the setting sun. The trail was also fairly empty because of the holiday, so we were yodeling and making fools of ourselves the entire time because no one was around to give us scolding stares.

Trudging back on to the bus, we headed to Itaewon, which is known as the foreigner's district in Seoul. Now, for over 2 months I have been completely immersed in Korean society. Every person I see in the street, the store, at school... they are all dark-haired, dark-eyed Koreans. So imagine my surprise when upon exiting the subway in Itaewon I was thrust into a crush of fair-haired foreigners, all chattering away in English, Spanish, Dutch, German, etc. I was dumbstruck. With the Chuseok holiday, most Koreans are out of town, add to this the fact that we were already in the foreigner's district and I felt like I was right back in America. Sweaty and exhausted, we made a beeline for the first motel we could find, "The Hilltop Hotel". It's aptly named because it was a steep climb to reach the place and we noticed a lot of...indecently dressed women on the trek upward. 50,000 won a night for a room the size of a broom closet with 1 twin bed (there were 3 of us). But we paid it, left all our bags in the room and headed out for dinner...which turned out to be Coldstone ice cream. Coldstone is the ice cream of the Gods and it rose up out of the street like a shining beacon of hope and comfort. Well, that's dramatic... but the ice cream was delicious, and it was such a treat to sit down and actually be able to eavesdrop on other people's conversations.

Stuffed full of a cup of the Gotta-Have-It sized Verry Berry, we lumbered back to our room to shower and get ready for bed. Shaina happened to flip open her travel guide, and we discovered with a thrill that we were staying on the notorious "Hooker Hill", which explained the nearly-naked women prowling the streets like jungle cats the whole walk up. It would also explain the ghastly red lighting in our room that reminded me of the red light district in Amsterdam.A lot of men hustling the Hell out of there early the next morning...
Two ladies of the night.

We spent Sunday wandering aimlessly around the streets of Itaweon, shopping for souvenirs and soaking up the English. I really enjoy haggling (true car dealer's daughter ;) ) and ended up saving a pile of money just from exasperating the salespeople. We tried on horrendous Korean clothing (Koreans love gaudy outfits with enough sequins and rhinestones to be costumes on a Broadway performance) and ate a delicious lunch of sashimi and greens where I was able to steal 4 sets of nice chopsticks without getting caught!

The trip was a wild one, and I am looking forward to next weekend because I will be traveling again. Look forward to more outrageous stories and photos, and just to end on a great note:
The Gator Nation exists even in South Korea.