Traveling Seoul-o

Yesterday was such a fun day! It's like going to summer camp all over again. One of the classes that I got to take was traditional Korean pottery. We each got a slab of wet clay and were given instructions on how to make a cup. Even though our instructors only spoke Korean, we could speak to each other very easily because they were teaching us with their hands, no words necessary! My cup is the one in front with the big globs of white running down from the top. I was attempting to make it appear like milk was sloshing over the rim of the cup, but I don't think I got it quite right.This is a random picture to show you how small Korean soda is. Everything comes in these skinny cans. For our afternoon classes, the TaLK staff usually will give us a snack. Today it happened to be watermelon and..... a tiny, hot baked potato!

We all woke up early this morning for an organized trip to Seoul, which is the capital of South Korea. From Suwon, it was only about an hour long bus ride. Our first stop was right in the business district of Seoul. The two girls below are Shaena (Left) and Eunice, best friends from California who will be living in the same city as me! Best of all- Eunice is Korean-American and is fluent in Korean! TaLK organized a private viewing of the show "Nanta", which is something akin to the Blueman Group and Stomp. In the show, four actors play these fast paced rhythms using knives, pots, pans and sometimes each other's limbs! Besides playing music, there was also a little story to follow along: it's some one's wedding day, and the kitchen is short a chef. So, the wedding planner (a man) brings his incompetent nephew to help the three chefs in the kitchen prepare the wedding feast. It was a comedy all throughout the show with the Nephew constantly messing up the food, tripping and all other sorts of antics. No words were necessary, it was funny stuff! While the show was in Korean, the actors did their best to say a few phrases in English too. I wish I could show you more photos, but pictures weren't allowed and the ones I did take were almost confiscated! Right after snapping that shot a little Korean lady ran at me and crossed her arms in an "X" across her chest. In fact, that's the only way Koreans seem to think foreigners will understand "no." I guess we are pretty thickheaded. :o)

After Nanta, we headed to In Sadong, which is a part of Seoul considered to be "old" Korean, meaning the buildings are designed to looks historic and the street vendors sell a lot of freaky seafood. The street vendors were hilarious to watch. they shout out all the English words they think they know to try and get your attention. One shop was selling this sugary treat called "Dragon's teeth", which was spun from cornstarch. This video shows it all. Listen closely to what they are saying for a laugh.

We were starving, so we barreled into the first restaurant we could find. Koreans waste no time, and the second we sat down the waitress was at our table, asking what our orders were. Of course, I couldn't read the menu. Thank God Eunice was there because the dumplings that I wanted were filled with pork and I am still sticking to being a vegetarian as much as possible. So I ended up ordering a cold dish. It was hair-thin rice noodles in spicy sauce with raw octopus tentacles. I ordered it because it said "sashimi", which I thought would be raw pieces of fish. As strange as it looks though, octopus doesn't taste bad at all. It's incredibly tough to chew, and the little suction cups will stick to your tongue if you press the tentacle down hard enough!


On the flight to Korea, lots of people told me that when Koreans hear me speaking English, one of two reactions will occur: 1.) They will be immensely intrigued and will try to practice their English with me whether I appear busy or not, and 2.) They will get angry and yell at me. Luckily, #1 happened right when I stepped out of the restaurant. A little girl and her mother approached me with huge grins on their faces. The little girl was doing an interview project for her school and wanted to interview me. Her questions were: 1.) Why did I decide to visit Korea, 2.) what is my favorite thing about Korea so far, 3.) Where do I want to visit the most, 4.) Where am I from and 5.) what would I change about Korea if I could (By the way, for this question I hesitated, not wanting to offend her. She gave me this electric smile and said "maybe the traffic? They do honk a lot, don't they!" I was saved from a foot-in-the-mouth moment by an 8-year-old!) She wrote down all my answers in a Hello Kitty notebook and then asked if she could take a picture with me.
Next to my encounter with the lunch lady over my ear piercings, this was one of my best moments yet! The funny thing is, the girl's mother didn't speak a single word of English whereas her daughter could have passed for an American girl. it all goes back to what I mentioned in my last post: Korean parents want their children to learn English so much, it's incredible.

After eating, we walked around town for a bit and soaked in the scenery. The street food is pungent ranging from nuts roasted in honey with bits of puffed wheat to blackened crickets and whole squid splayed out on clothes lines, curing in a crust of salt in the sunlight. And the fashion- geez! Korean women and men are dressed to the nines wherever they go. Every. Single. Woman. wears heels or some sort of strappy shoe. If you want to pick a foreigner out of the crowd, look for someone wearing flip flops (that'd be me!) And another interesting note: Korean women do not show their chests. Period. I didn't see a single tank top or low cut shirt on any of the women. In fact, I ended up changing clothes because the first top I had (a tank top which would be considered casual and hardly provocative in the States) was earning me some pretty hard looks by Korean people.

We originally wanted to stay the night in a hostel, but most of us lost the desire to stay out partying just because of the early start to the day and the fact that a lot of people don't have enough money. It's not that things are that expensive, but we would have had to pay for the room, food, our cover for any bars and any drinks we would have ordered. So we lingered on the streets for a few hours and then loaded up to drive back to Suwon.

All in all, an eventful day. Enjoy the pics below. I just snapped a few to show you how odd the historic Korean buildings look juxtaposed to the skyscrapers just a few blocks behind them.

At this park, these little old men would take their shoes off and rest their feet of newspaper so they wouldn't get dirty.