Bittersweet Goodbyes

Okay, okay, so I haven't written in awhile.  To be honest, the past few days have been kind of strange, with all the planned activities winding down, but at the same time, things have been getting more hectic as everyone is preparing to leave.  I last wrote on Monday night, before our party with our RA.  Now it is Friday morning (as I write this beginning, it is bound to be much later once I reach the end, as I have to leave for the bus for my flight in only about 45 minutes), so I have a lot of ground to cover.  Let's get started!

On Monday night we did have our party with our RA.  He and some of the Korean girls went out and got tons of snacks and drinks and a cake for us to eat.  The cake was the highlight, it was a white cake with fruit on top from Paris Baguette, the cafe which we have all fallen in love with while here.  In addition to grapes and other standard fruits, the cake also had some cherry tomatoes on top, which I guess is okay because they're technically fruits, but it was somewhat strange as in the USA, we never ever eat them as fruits.  Our RA is very sweet and kind (Later proven by official vote, as he won the "Most Caring Staff" award during our end-of-program dinner.  More on that later.), and it's a shame that we didn't get to spend more time with him.

Tuesday was the day we had to prepare our group presentations.  Our group decided to cover Drinking Culture in South Korea, and my part of the presentation, along with another girl, we covered popular alcoholic drinks in Korea.  I got to talk about Hite Brewing Company (specializes in a Budweiser-like beer, most of the beers here are very very light, kind of a shame as I like darker beers) and Makgeolli, which is Korean rice wine (I quite like it, if you mix it with Sprite, it tastes like champagne).  The other members covered the history of alcohol in Korea, some current issues with alcohol, social venues where you can drink, and some Korean drinking games.  It only took a short amount of time to actually work on the presentation, the majority of the time was spent trying to coordinate with the other 10 members of the team.  11 people is quite a lot when you're trying to put together one coherent presentation in a short amount of time.  In some of the down time, one of the other girls and I did some online window-shopping for Tom's shoes.  Back at home, I'd heard of Tom's before for their charity work (the company will donate a pair of shoes for every pair you buy) , but never really seen anyone wearing them.  Here in Korea, they are EVERYWHERE.  They're supposed to be very comfortable and durable, and the money goes to a good cause too, so I'll probably end up buying some once I get home (yes, I know, more shopping).  Our discussion group got done in the early afternoon, and then the rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing.  After a bit of reading and napping, we decided to make a movie afternoon out of it.  It was raining like crazy, and there were a couple of cracks of VERY close thunder, so it didn't make sense to try and go out sightseeing anywhere.  The first movie we chose was called My Sassy Girl, and it was a very crazy romantic comedy.  Tough to describe really, it was just very funny, and very random.  We watched that up until dinner, and then after dinner, we watched a movie called The Chaser.  It was a crime-drama movie about a serial killer, and it was quite good, though quite scary, and a plot twist at the end featuring one of the dumbest characters ever featured on screen made me a bit mad.  The plot was loosely based on a true story, which made it all the more creepy, but luckily we didn't know that it was based in reality until after the movie was over, or else I'm not sure we would have made it to the end.

Speaking of all the rain that pushed us to have a movie afternoon, we found out on our last day in Korea that they have been having floods that are breaking all kinds of records, the term "flood of the century" has been thrown around a couple of times.  My homestead buddy showed me a picture of the parking lot outside of her apartment, and it was COMPLETELY underwater.  All the cars had brown muddy water halfway up their sides, and she said that her family couldn't go to work because of the flooding.  Luckily her family lives on the ninth floor of their building, so at least their place is safe - but the first floor of the building is flooded.  I wonder if that's structurally sound?  It's so strange to think that the place I stayed less than two weeks ago is now totally flooded.

Wednesday was the day we got to present our group projects to the rest of the students and to the faculty for grading.  The order for the 10 groups to present was chosen randomly, and we were lucky enough to get to go third, early enough that the people in the audience were still awake and somewhat focused, but not right in the very beginning, where we might have been nervous about having to go first and set the pace.  We later found out that our group grade was B+, not too bad, especially considering that our choice of topic may or may not have made the professors slightly uncomfortable . . . 

The presentations got done in the early afternoon, and then we had a few hours until the Farewell Party that night.  I spent some time packing and getting everything in order for the next few days.  Dinner wasn't served in the cafeteria like normal, instead we went to a large meeting room, where they had set up round tables with white linens, and fresh flowers and candles in the center.  There was a buffet with tons of foods and desserts, and a stage was set up for the "Awards Ceremony."  The night before we had been given forms to fill out, where we had voted on "Most Flirty," "Mr. Popular," "Most Koreanized," etc., like for high school yearbooks.  The results of that survey were announced at the dinner, and there was also a talent show and a raffle where about 20 people got prizes.  We also watched a slide show that had been put together from all the photos that had been taken thought the month.  After all that was over, everyone found out who their "Secret Angel" was.  I believe I explained this before, but to explain the "Secret Angel" program in a tiny nutshell, at the beginning of the month, we were given the name of a person to give small gifts to throughout the month, and we were that person's "Secret Angel".  At this Farewell Party, the tables were turned, and now we were to give a gift to the person who had been our Secret Angel for the month, as a kind of "thank you."  The girl who I gave gifts to gave me some Korean snacks as her "thank you", I decided to save them all until I get home, most of the other snacks I bought with the intention of taking home, I ate already.  Whoops.

After the Farewell Party, my roommate also gave me some gifts as a going away present.  She and I were quite a good match for each other, as we are both somewhat quiet and reserved, not big praters, and she was always very accommodating, even when I had my cold and was hacking on a regular basis.  I gave her some things as well, but not until Thursday night, as I wanted her to have them as close to the end of the program as possible.  Thursday night turned out to be quite a crazy night - but I'll get to that in a moment.  I have to cover the rest of Thursday day first!

Thursday was the final full day, and we were awarded our certificates of completion, and a few speeches were given by students, visiting faculty, a staff member, and the president of Seoul Women's University.  A number of people could be seen crying during the presentation, as all the speeches were quite good, and some were quite moving.  Our certificates are quite fancy, possibly nicer than the diploma I received for completing my Associate's degree.  They're in blue velvet covers, with the seal of the Seoul Women's University embossed on front.  We also watched a compilation video of all the footage that had been taken during the month.  We had an amazing videography staff, with one dedicated photographer, one dedicated videographer, and a few other cameras that would circulate among the staff when they weren't busy with other tasks.  For this program, there are literally hundreds of photos on Facebook as a result (not even beginning to count all the photos all us students took of each other), and as soon as each day's pictures were uploaded each afternoon, friends would tag each other.  This turned out to be a quite efficient method for this whole month, as we all took care of our own friends and acquaintances, and the matrix of who knew who was wide enough that we would get done quickly.

Note: I am currently writing this section while on the plane home, and we are experiencing quite a bit of turbulence, so I apologize if my thoughts seem a bit rattled as a result, that may have something to do with it.  =)

After the official certificate ceremony, some of us decided to venture out to Lotte Plaza (yes, ANOTHER Lotte item).  We had gone to Lotte Plaza a few weeks ago to see a movie, but we hadn't had enough time at that point to actually look around or do any shopping.  One of the girls from Cedar Crest needed to pick up a second suitcase to take home al her extra purchases from this trip, but it turned out that Lotte Plaza was one of the worst places we could have thought of to look for that.  The best way I can think to describe Lotte Plaza is to compare it to Sax Fifth Avenue.  It's one big building, about 10 stories tall, and each floor is dedicated to a different type of item (basement is food, first floor is cosmetics and handbags, second floor is junior's clothing, etc.).  Within each floor, there are a number of vendors, but they don't have shops with walls like a traditional USA mall, they just have some floor space, and every shop just spills out on to each other shop.  And it is VERY upscale.  We stopped to ask the price of a suitcase that we saw, and it was around $300.  Not quite in our price range.  We did do a bit of looking around, just for fun, and I did find a shirt for $12 in the Zara store, a steal in this otherwise very expensive Plaza.  But after an hour or so, we realized that there was pretty much nothing we could afford, and definitely no suitcases (which was the point of this whole excursion), so we went to ANOTHER Lotte outpost - Lotte Mart.

Lotte Mart is best described as a store with a severe identity crisis.  On the floor with suitcases, there was also the cosmetics section, which was right next to some pianos that were for sale, near the kids' toy section, which was right next to the book store, which was right next to the underwear section, which was right next to the pet section.  And when I say pet section, I don't mean that these were items for pets, I mean that they were literally pets, and they were literally right next to completely unrelated things.  On one shelf on a cage was a rabbit, above him was a lizard, facing that shelf was a bin full of puzzles, and across the aisle was the men's boxers.  Whoever organized the store definitely had an interesting way of deciding what items were related to each other.  We did find a suitcase, and some of us bought a few other small items too (but I didn't, my shopping spree ended with the $12 shirt in Lotte Plaza).  You had to check out on each floor, so we went down a level to look for something to drink, and on that floor entered a grocery store.  There were tables out offering samples every few feet, and as a souvenir I picked up the flyer advertising what was on sale that week.  The groceries also suffered from confusing arrangement, and random food groups were thrown together.  If I remember correctly, I think the lighting section might have also been on that floor.

Once we got back from shopping, we went to dinner in the dining hall, and it turns out that we were in the minority by doing so.  Pretty much no one else was there with us, nearly everyone must have decided to go out for the night.  After dinner, some of us watched a movie called "My Girlfriend is an Agent," which was a cute romantic comedy/spy movie, but due to the fact that we were watching it curled up with our blankets and pillows on the floor of our common room, and I was a bit tired, I fell asleep about halfway through.  I awoke to the sound of a siren or alarm in the movie, and got to watch the last five minutes or so.  The three of us who had been watching (or sleeping through, in my case) the movie stayed on the floor for a bit, though while we were there a GIGANTIC bug flew by, a bug that one of my suitemates said was a mosquito, but I think it was some completely different species of animal - I have never seen a mosquito that big, I think it might be biologically impossible for a mosquito to grow to that size.  I need to look that up when I get the chance.  We worked on our laptops for a bit, and then heard over the intercom system that we were to clean our rooms.  We emptied out our trash cans, but our curfew time was right around this time as well, so it meant that everyone was back in their rooms for the last night, and then roommates and suitemates and schoolmates started handing out presents to each other and reminiscing - then the tears started.  Nearly everyone start crying, and for a good couple of hours, any room or suite you walked into would have at least a few people crying at any given moment.  Of course, these people would then wander around to find their friends to tell them what had happened or what they had received or whatever, and then some new people would start crying.  Ar our headcount meeting last night, we were given a DVD of the photos and videos from the program, and our RA also wrote each of us a note.  I told you he was quite nice.  In our room, we also did what the Korean girls called "rolling papers," the name of which, I have to admit, threw us off when they first mentioned them.  We all went "What?  Rolling papers?  Are you talking about cigarettes?"  Not quite.  How it really works is like this - everyone takes a piece of paper and writes their name at the top.  Then the paper is passed to another person, who writes a note to the person whose name is at the top, and this continues until everyone writes on everyone else's paper, and each paper has a note from every person.  All the 11 girls in our room participated, and we also wrote a rolling paper for our RA.  After this, it was quite late, though I stayed up for a little bit to spend some more time with the girls from our room (and the Cedar Crest girls who technically were staying in other rooms, but spent most of their time in ours).  About 2:30am, I headed to sleep, and that was that.

This morning (Friday) around 6:45am, the one Cedar Crest girl who had to leave on an early flight came in to my room to poke me awake (I had said she should, so that I could say goodbye to her).  Unfortunately I was a bit dazed, and not nearly as coherent as I thought I would be, so I just kind of sat up and stared confusedly at her for a few seconds until she was like "Okay . . . I have to go now."  I then said "Bye!" and fell back asleep.  I got up about an hour later and took a shower and went to breakfast.  There were very few people eating, though that's not necessarily because today was the last day, as the program has been advancing, fewer and fewer people have been getting up in time to eat breakfast, probably because they've been staying up later and later as they get more comfortable with their roommates and other friends.  After breakfast, I made one last trip to Paris Baguette with one of the other Cedar Crest girls, and then had a few hours to poke around until our bus for the airport left.  Now I'm on the plane, and once I get home and back online, I'll post this.  I suppose that does it for this official program, but I'll keep on posting some of my thoughts and experiences from South Korea once I get home.

Shopping Sunday & Military Monday

It appears that I am falling a bit behind in my posting . . . I suppose the fact that I know this trip is almost over makes me feel like I can slack a bit, as I'll have time to catch up once I get home and the excitement slows down.  But if I let myself become lazy, then I know I'll start to forget some of the things I've done, and I won't write them down, and then this trip will all become a jumble in my mind, and I won't have a record to refer to.  So I shall continue on.

On Sunday, the second day of our free weekend, my roommates and I once again got breakfast from Paris Baguette.  I got a cappuccino and four different pastries, ate three of the breads for breakfast, saving one for later that night.  It made for a quite tasty (if not particularly healthy) breakfast.  After that, some of us chilled in our rooms for a bit, while the others continued work on their papers.

An hour or so passed until those of us that were ready decided to venture out to Namdaemun Market in Seoul, where a number of stores and stalls sell clothes and trinkets and some snack foods and whatnot.  There were only three of us, and all Cedar Crest students, so were adventuring a bit by having so few people attempting to master the Seoul subway system.  We actually did just fine, not getting lost once, except for getting confused a few times by signs that seemed to contradict each other, but luckily the confusion this caused was minor and easily remediable.  We got to the market and as soon as we got off, encountered a stall selling slices of watermelon and pineapple and other fresh fruit.  I bought a slice of watermelon for only 1000 won, and it was delicious.  The vendor also sliced the piece in such a way so that it was each to eat without having to bury your face up to your cheeks in order to get at all the fruit.  I'll have to remember that trick once I get home.

We wandered around a bit, and found a stand selling clothes in the most disorganized manner I have ever seen.  I don't have a clue where the clothes might possibly have come from, but there were a few tables set up that were covered with the most random assortment of clothing items you can imagine.  Mainly (I think) women's clothing, there were tops and pants and skirts and dresses, with the tags from all kinds of companies, and in all kinds of sizes (though mainly the clothes were on the smaller size, considering that Koreans tend to run smaller than most Americans).  I didn't see any duplicate items, and the fabrics and patterns ran the gamut.  I bought a dress made of some kind of jersey material, completely devoid of any tag or label, but it only cost me 4000 won, and it does in fact fit (forget about finding a fitting room in these markets).  The girls I was with also found some items, and they also bought shoes, but I was unable to, as I couldn't find anything big enough for my size 9 feet.  The shoe sizes here aren't American, but through trial-and-error the other two girls managed to find out that they were size 240 and 245, respectively, I'm guessing I would be around a size 260, though the biggest size in the store we looked at was 250.

Though Namdaemun was reported to be an all-day trip, we finished in only an hour or two (we're still not sure if we missed some major portion of the market or if the guidebook just lied), and then tried to figure out what to do with the rest of the day.  None of us could think of places that we knew we wanted to visit, but we didn't want to return to the dorm and waste our free weekend while all of Seoul lay out there for us to discover.  After some guide-book flipping, we decided to go check out Olympic Park, from when the Summer Olympics were held in Seoul in 1988.

Considering it was a somewhat spur-of-the-moment decision, we didn't really know what to expect once we got there, but it turned out to be a beautiful park filled with sculptures (SOMA Art Museum is right there) and the Olympic buildings ringing the outside.  There was also the Peace Gate and plenty of exercise equipment sprinkled about.  That's something I've noticed, next to playgrounds and such, a number of times I've seen outdoor exercise equipment installed, I suppose Korea takes its citizens' health seriously.  As we walked, we heard some very loud music, and it turns out that the K-Pop band Girls' Generation was playing in one of the Olympic Buildings that day.  Compared to our bands back in the USA, the K-Pop bands I've seen seem to have a LOT more members.  For example, Girls' Generation has nine girl singers . . . I don't even know if they play the instruments, or if they have extra members for that.  Much larger than any American bands I can think of.

Walking around Olympic Park had made the three of us rather hot and sweaty and hungry, and we searched for a place to eat.  We went into a Chinese restaurant to eat and were told it would be a 10-minute wait, which we were fine with, until we started waiting and started to see the prices for the dishes . . . and then we decided to try elsewhere.  A bit further down the road we found a Burger King, and decided to check it out.  Though I am vegetarian, and usually most fast food restaurants don't offer me anything reasonable to eat, I was fine with stopping, as I like to see what items the international branches of American fast food companies offer.  This menu offered a "Bulgogi Burger" in addition to most American favorites.  The one disappointing thing was that the menu of sides was completely different from home, offering fewer options, which is how I ended up eating corn salad, a brownie with ice cream, and a cappuccino for dinner.  Oh well.

We then returned back to the dorm, and called it a night, as we learned we had to get up early this morning for our trip to the DMZ.

We left the dorm at 7:50 this morning in order to get to the border at a reasonable time.  It took us about two hours to get to Cheorwon county, and once there, a guide got on the bus to show us around.  We first stopped at the 2nd Infiltration Tunnel, which is a tunnel that North Korea built to sneak-attack South Korea.  Our guide said that, had the tunnel been completed and used, it would have been able to transport something like 30,000 troops into South Korea from the North within an hour.  We were allowed to travel down it, and it got quite chilly as we went down.  It also got quite short and narrow, and we were glad for the helmets that had been provided, as every couple seconds you could hear a *thwack* followed by the "OW" of someone someone hitting their helmet on the rocky roof of the tunnel.

After the tunnel, we got to stop at the Peace Observatory, where we could see some North Korean lookout towers, and mountains that were the sites for various skirmishes during the Korean war.  It was a bit odd to look around and see the sites that were the location for such historical conflicts.

That's about it for today, though tonight we are having a bit of a party with our RA, who has been a very nice guy in dealing with 11 very giggly young adult girls.  Right now he and a few of the Korean students are out getting the snacks and should be back any minute to hang out for a few hours.  Tomorrow we have to meet with our discussion groups in order to prepare a 20-minute presentation that we will give on Wednesday (the day after tomorrow).  I'm not so much concerned about the presentation itself, as I am about the preparation tomorrow.  I don't know how 12 of us will be able to choose a topic and all contribute to the presentation production process - within 3 hours or so.  In order to not have the process drag on interminably, we've set ourselves some time limits, though I wonder if we'll be able to buckle down and really be able to get down to business in that short amount of time.  I guess we'll have to . . .

Octopus Breath

Today's fun and frolic was the tangible benefit of finishing my term paper early.  I knew being studious and an early worker would pay off eventually.

I slept in until around 9:30 this morning, and then took a nice long shower and waited for the rest of my suitemates to get up.  Once we reached a critical mass of people, we headed off for the Paris Baguette shop down the street from the university.  Paris Baguette is a shop similar to a Panera bread, though there's tons more pastries to choose from, and the prices are much lower.  Oh, and there's one about every 300 feet in Seoul.  There's also a chain of shops called Paris Croissant, but I haven't tried that store (I imagine it would be fairly similar.)  We all picked out various pastries and drinks that we wanted to try, and then brought them back up to our suite for brunch.  I had a vegetable bread, parmesan doughnut (yes, that's right), and a custard-filled bread.  We all agreed that the food seemed to be the best we had ever eaten, and I think that might just be because most of us are going through bread withdrawal, as the main carbohydrate here is rice - nothing wrong with that, but our American palates are used to starches of the more processed and baked and yeasty kind.

This is where the positive benefits of finishing my term paper early start to appear.  After we finished eating, three of the girls from Cedar Crest decided it was time to buckle down and finish their term papers, while the three of us who had gotten done early decided to do some more sight-seeing.  Two of the Korean students came with us as our guides, and so we set out.  We decided to go back to Insadong, even though we had been there back in the first of the week trip, as the two other Cedar Crest girls needed to buy more souvenirs, and I was game for anything.

On the way to Insadong, my coughing cold kicked in, and as I didn't want to have a giant hacking fit on the subway, I tried to hold back, but this somehow messed with my sinuses, and I started crying involuntarily.  The two Korean students with us couldn't figure out quite what was going on, so to them (and the rest of the subway car), I just spontaneously started crying.  Luckily one of the other Cedar Crest girls was able to explain to our Korean friends what was going on, and they understood that I was really okay (other than the whole random-coughing thing).  This cold I have is strange, as 90% of the time, I'm fine, but all of a sudden I'll be hit by a wave of something, and I'll sound like I'm dying, and I won't be able to hold back.  I just hope that I'm all fixed up by the plane ride home, and today's subway episode isn't repeated on the plane . . . that might be a bit awkward.

In Insadong, we wandered around the streets that we had been down before, but this time there were WAY more people, probably because it was the weekend this time, and there were far more foreign tourists.  Maybe it's because we normally travel with Korean students as our guides, but I don't feel like a tourist in the way I normally do when I travel.  I mean, I get that I obviously stand out as not Korean, but I don't feel like a tourist tourist.  So every time I think "Oh look, a tourist!" I have to remind myself that I am actually a tourist myself.

While in Insadong, we decided to revisit a waffle-and-ice-cream restaurant that we ate at the last time we were there.  It took a good 20 minutes of scouting to figure out where we had gone last time, as we tred to retrace our steps and failed miserably, going up and down the street and disagreeing about where we had eaten, and whether it was important to eat in the exact same place again.  In the end, we went back to the same place, and it turned out to be a good thing, because one of the Korean girls was friends with the waitress who worked there, and after we had ordered and eaten our waffles with ice cream, she brought us an order of patbingsu for free.  I think I mentioned this dessert before, but in case I haven't, it's kind of like an ice cream sundae with extra shaved ice that you mix up before eating . . . the wiki article on it can fill you in on the rest.

We got done with Insadong much more quickly than we had thought we would (perhaps because we had been there before and kind of already knew what was there), and from there we decided to visit Gyeongdong Market.  This turned out to be a huge market selling all kinds of dried foods and fish and seafood and fruits and everything you can imagine.  Most of the items I have seen before in various travels, but there were a few unique items.  We saw some dried centipedes, which actually looked remarkably vegetable-like.  There were also a few butcher stands selling dogs' legs, which was a new sight for me.  The one Korean girl was embarrassed to tell us what they were (we kind of guessed from the appearance, but were just asking her to confirm our suspicions), afraid that we would freak out and/or think Korea was weird.  We assured her that we were fine with the concept, just making sure that we had correctly identified the item in question.  We had.

We continued walking around, and eventually ended up at Lotte Plaza (I wasn't kidding when I said this store is huge in Korea), where we went in and spent some time poking around.  At the beauty shop I bought some items, again, uncharacteristic for me, but fun.  The clerks threw in a bunch of extra free samples in my bag, one of which says it contains "snail essence," so I'm torn on that one, as to if I should use it as a vegetarian.  That, and I don't even know what kind of product it is, so I'll need some Korean help in figuring how I would use it, if I am going to.  Around Lotte Plaza there were a number of little kitschy stores which we wandered through, and I bought a pair of socks.  Random, I know, but there seem to be socks EVERYWHERE here.  Socks with bunnies, socks with cats, socks with Korean flags, whatever.  The cuteness factor of Korea is inescapable, and even the socks are touched by it.

We wanted to try some Korean pizza, so after we were done shopping, we took the bus to what is apparently the Korean pizza center of the world, as a number of restaurants' workers were calling to us to try their shop's pizza (though they were calling in Korean, so we only knew what they were saying after translation).  It turns out that the place we went to, I had been to before with my homestay buddy and her friends, but the rest of the Cedar Crest girls had never been there before.  It was quite funny, that two Korean girls, without contacting each other, would both choose the same restaurant as the prime choice to get Korean pizza.  I guess the place we went to must be pretty popular . . .

The Korean girl (in case you're wondering, our group started out as three Cedar Crest girls with two Korean girls with us, and in the middle of our adventure, one Korean girl left to spend the rest of the free weekend at her parents' home, so that explains why I switched from "girls" to "girl") ordered the most popular Korean pizza for us, which isn't really pizza at all.  I'll let wiki explain what pajeon is for me.  Ours came with lots of green onion and octopus, which I really hadn't planned on eating, but I at least gave it a shot (last time we had the kimchi pajeon, so I hadn't been worried about eating meat and messing with my vegetarianism).  The octopus was really chewy, though the taste wasn't bad.  But given that eating a lot of meat tends to make me sick, as I'm not used to it, I did my best to eat around it and just have the onions and "crust".  It was quite good, and we shared a bottle of Magkeolli.

And to just think, if I hadn't gotten my paper done early, I wouldn't have had the chance to do all that.  Makes me glad I'm not a procrastinator.

Lazy Days

So, today is the last full Friday of this program.  Next Friday is the day we all head back out to the airport to take our flights home (except for the people who are continuing on to other adventures, or staying on in Korea to make the most of the flight here).  I have to admit, I am looking forward to some of the familiar comforts of home, though I will be sad to leave. Inevitably when I travel, once it's time to return home, I never feel like I've absorbed as much of the country and culture as I should have.

In my last post, I left off with checking on my wash.  As a bit of an extension to that, I never really realized what a difference using a dryer can make.  Only after two weeks of having only line-dried clothes, and then going back to drier-dried clothes, did I realize how wonderful drier-dried clothes are.  Nice and fluffy and flexible and no funky smell.  They're also the correct size. (The washer here is a monster that stretches everything out about a size or so, so all my clothes have been baggy since I've washed them, but now they're back down to size after a spin on the drier's hottest setting.)

This morning we had Sports Day, in which everyone in the program was split into two teams, the White against the Blue team, and then we competed against each other in a number of activities.  There was a soccer game, a variant of tug-of-war in which the players had to lay on the ground away from the rope and then run to grab the rope before the other team, Korean wrestling, a cheering competition, a game called chicken fight where players hopped on one foot and knocked the other players over, and a mission relay.  I ended up not playing anything, I thought I had been signed up to play tug-of-war, but when I checked the list this morning, my name was not to be found, so I was just a member of the supporting crowd.  Our team (the White Team) won everything except for the cheering competition and the relay, though we hit a number of unfair roadblocks in the mission relay, and had they not happened, we probably would have won that as well.  For instance, one of the missions for our team was to find a certain staff member and give them a piggyback ride, but apparently this certain staff member was not told of the plan, because as soon as she heard what the mission's instructions were read, she ran out of the building and our player had to chase after her.  The other team did not face such similar problems.  However, given our wins on all the other activities, we won overall for Sports Day, which was a nice little boost.

The afternoon was free, and in the original schedule we were supposed to work on our term papers to get them done before the 5pm today, which is Friday, but since our deadline was extended until 5pm on Sunday, due to network maintenance issues, nearly everyone I know took a nap.  Unfortunately this means that the procrastinators among us will be spending their free weekend working on the term paper, but such is life, I suppose.  I woke up from my nap with just enough time to spare to get ready for dinner, and then returned to the room until it was time for our group discussion papers.

That's really it for today, though once I got done with my group paper, I came back to the room and helped edit two of my suitemates' papers.  It made me realize how lucky I am to know English as my primary language, and it also made me realize what a strange language English is.  Coming from the US, I just know instinctively how English works with its articles and prepositions and tenses and whatnot, but as I worked to fix the little glitches in their papers, I discovered that it's hard to come up with rules for how to use the language.  It's got a lot of little words that you just need to know how to use, there's no easy way to explain how they work.  It seems to be a language of exceptions to the rules, which makes it strange.

It's almost 4am.  Now I remember why I don't like to take naps, they totally mess with my body's rhythms   Thank goodness this weekend is the free weekend, where we can do whatever we want . . . including sleeping in.  I think that's the first item on my agenda.

Rivers and Dances

I'm getting a bit behind in my posts.  I'm still a bit sick, not feeling all that bad, but I sound horrible, and am quite sleepy in the evenings.  Our term papers are also due soon, so I've been devoting most of my writing skills towards completing that.

Yesterday in the morning we had a lecture on Korean music, which featured a lovely performance of traditional music played on traditional instruments.  This was different from the activity we had a week or two ago where we got to play instruments - those were more folk-song and festival-music oriented, these were more classical-music and court-music like (and we didn't get to mess with these).

In the afternoon we took the SWU school buses to the National Museum of Korea, which is a beautiful building filled with tons of artifacts from Korea and the rest of Asia.  Unfortunately the majority of the signs were in Korean, so I didn't quite understand how many of the items fit into the general scheme of things.  But it was nice to spend the afternoon in a beautiful building surrounded by Korean history.

After that, we took the buses over to the 63 Building, which, until a couple of years ago, was the tallest building in South Korea.  We wandered around the bottom of it, which has shops and a food court, and had dinner (once again) at Lotteria (I told you I'm turning into a junk food junkie).  I had the bizarre combination of french fries, cheese sticks, and a waffle with strawberry sauce.  You gotta love pieced-together meals.  We all also got ice cream, which definitely hit the spot after all that salt.  I also saw my third LUSH store for this trip, which makes me wish that we had this density of LUSH shops back at home.

Just a short walk away from the 63 Building is the Han River, and the six of us from Cedar Crest relaxed on some steps under the Wonhyo bridge.  In the movie "The Host" this bridge plays a big part, and it felt so neat to be there.  Aside from any associations with monster movies, it was a very relaxing way to spend an hour or so, just observing the scenery and taking in the setting sun.  There was also a jet skier out on the water and he kept performing tricks for us, so that was entertaining as well.

At 7pm we met up with all the other students in the program to go on a river cruise on the Han River.  The timing was perfect, as the sun was just setting, and I managed to get some pictures in before it was completely dark, which is when my camera completely gives up and won't take any decent pictures of anything.  The cruise was very relaxing, and we passed under a number of the bridges on the water, which was neat as the one was a bridge for trains, and a number went over as we were crossing under.

Last night after that was quiet, as I just finished up the rough draft for my term paper, and then went to bed.  Tonight I plan to edit my paper and then print it, and that will be the end of that.  The deadline for the paper was initially supposed to be tomorrow at 5pm, but due to that fact that IT will be doing network maintenance tonight and no one will be able to access the internet from 1am to 8am early tomorrow morning, they decided to give us two extra days, until Sunday at 5pm.  But I plan on continuing to pretend that the paper is due tomorrow, as I'd like to have it off my plate and no longer on my mental to-do list.

Today's activities included two lectures, the first on Korean dance, and the second on Korean architecture.  The dance "lecture" was more like a dance class, as I don't know anything more about Korean dance than I did before, but I do know a few moves.  However, there were so many people trying to learn from one professor, that it was next to impossible to see the instructor, so my moves are not very good.

The afternoon lecture was supposedly about Korean architecture, but it felt much more like an overview to Korean thought about space.  I kind of wish this lecture had been earlier, because I really feel like it helped me to understand how Koreans think in general.  Maybe that's just because I've been here awhile and can relate to what he talked about (taking off shoes before entering a room, approach to personal space and manners, approach to education, etc), but it was one of the best lectures of this program.

Tonight seems like it will be a quiet night.  After dinner, some of us went and got snacks from the convenience store down the road (which is probably making a killing off of all of us junk-food-hungry international students), and since then I've been writing emails and this post, helping my roommate with some citations for her paper (do you know how hard it is to cite something in MLA format when the source is in a different language that doesn't even use the Latin alphabet?), and doing laundry.  I haven't used a dryer since I've been here, given that the ones I've found are usually out of order, but my roommate showed me a hidden dryer room that I plan to use in order to avoid the funky-smell plague that is a result of air-drying clothes in this climate.

Speaking of that, my wash should be done.  I should go check it.

Shopping Mania

Today was a crazy kind of fun.

In the morning we had a lecture on Korean Economics, which was interesting, but more a general introduction to economic schools of thought, as opposed to an analysis of Korean markets in specific.

The afternoon featured the activity of dressing up in traditional Korean hanbok, which was a lot of fun.  Every single person had a costume to wear, including the handful of men in this program, and the faculty members visiting.  Seeing over a 100 people dressed up like that was quite a sight.  The clothes were a bit hot though, as we were wearing them over our street clothes, and there were many puffy layers to give them their traditional shape.

Following that, all of the girls from our school in PA decided that we wanted to go to Myeong-dong for a shopping night . . . though we've been to many other shopping venues throughout this trip, they've either offered only very tourist-trinket-y goods like keychains and fans, or we've had guys with us, who were not interested in going browsing like we wanted.  We searched for any Korean students who might want to join us, but they all wanted to work on their term papers like good students.  So the six of us Americans from Cedar Crest ventured out into the city for some quality shopping time.

At this juncture, it must be noted that I am NOT normally a big shopper.  I wil go shopping from time to time, but it's not in my top 10 favorite activities.  Maybe my top 20.  However, this market in Myeong-dong is just street after street after street of shop, with hundreds of stalls lining the roads selling scarves and purses and sunglasses and phone cases and all that sort of thing.  Everything is very affordable (and about 80% of it is designer knock-off), and it's fun to engage in a less "structured" form of shopping than we're used to in the US.

Anyway, we went out to the subway station that's about a 10 minute walk from campus, and hopped on to the subway for (literally) about 16 stops.  Then we transfered to another line for another 4 stops.  Until one is here, it's tough to explain the scope of this city - it's huge.  After getting off the subway at our stop, we had dinner at a Lotteria (and yes, it's another company owned by Lotte).  Basically an Asian McDonalds, all the girls I was with got hamburgers, and I got cheese sticks and a "Tornado" (the Asian McDonalds' answer to the McFlurry).  The cheese sticks were impossibly good, and now I really wish that I could find a US fast food chain that has them.

Following our fueling-up on fast food, we shopped for the next 3 hours or so.  Keeping track of six people in the impossibly busy and crowded market turned out to be a difficult task, and we accidentally split up a number of times, but never leaving just one person on their own, and we eventually all met up again.  I bought a shirt, skirt, dress, purse, earrings, necklace, bag, passport cover, small tin, card case, and planner for somewhere on the order of $45.  Given what I got, and the experience, it was well worth the price.

Now it's about half-past midnight, and I'm going to work a bit on my term paper.  All the Korean students who stayed back have made progress, and I feel I must do the same.  I also meant to wrap one of my "Secret Angel" gifts, but I may not get around to it.  We were all assigned random people to anonymously give gifts to at the beginning of the program, and every morning the presents are handed out.  I've given two so far, trying to pace myself with the things I've brought from home, but the program is quickly winding down, and I fear I may suddenly find myself at the end with a surplus of gifts . . .

Also, random note.  I wanted to get something to drink this morning, and the vending machine in our building is hopelessly always empty of the drinks that are identifiable, so I got one of the few remaining unknown items - it was something called "Milk Tea," but it turned out to taste like liquified All-Sorts Licorice Candy.  I really really really hate that candy, but considering I was trying to stop myself from coughing during the lecture (I have a bit of a cold, still), I kept drinking it.  Turns out that anything can become more palatable if you force it on yourself enough times.  It was okay by the time I reached the bottom of the can.

But I'm definitely not buying it again.

Procrastination

So, I'm supposed to be working on my term paper right now.  Guess I'm not, if you're reading this.

Actually, I'm doing okay.  I'm already on my fourth page, and it only has to be five pages total, so I don't have much to worry about.  Most people haven't started yet, or are starting tonight, so I should be ahead of the game.

I just had a rush of some random observations about Korea that I wanted to write do before I forget . . .

I love how prices on packages already include tax.  If you see a box and it says 2500 won, that's what you're paying.  No dumb tax and trying to dig for change at the last minute because you're not sure how much you really owe.

I like how the subways are super-clean and have TV screens in them telling you what station is coming up and where you are on the line and they announce in Korean and English.

That's all for now.  I'm sure I'll think of more later.

Just a Photo

Out the window of my homestay buddy's apartment.  There's just building after building after building of apartments . . . so weird compared to back home where it's suburban house after suburban house after suburban house . . .

Wild Weekend

Okay, so, it's been a wild few days.  Let me try to get things back up to speed so that I don't fall even more terribly behind with things than I already am.

On Saturday, I left for my weekend homestay with one of the Korean students who I only met the day before I was to stay at her house.  How's that for being a homecrasher?  A big part of this program seems to be pairing up students with other students they don't know, in order to get the most "mixing" of people, and to prevent people from getting too stuck in their own little cliques (but it happens anyway).

My homestay buddy and I, along with about 7 other students, went to the giant amusement park of Korean awesomeness that is Lotte World.  Lotte (check out the link to the Wiki page) is an absolutely ginormous brand here in Korea, and everything from soft drinks to gum to department stores and amusement parks are owned by them.  There's both and indoor and outdoor part to the amusement park, but it started raining quite heavily as soon as we went to the outdoor section (and I heard my first few bits of thunder since being here), so we spent the majority of our time inside.  There's an indoor roller coaster, water ride, viking ship ride, the works, so we had a grand old time wandering around in there.  Oddly enough, for lunch we ate at a "Mexican" restaurant, and I put Mexican in quotes because on the side of the dish there were still pickles and a bit of kimchi, makes me wonder about the authenticity of any food if you're eating it outside of its home country.  I also had a bit of (what the stand called) "Peanut Buttered Squid".  It was basically little strips of squid that were deep fried, though it did have a vaguely peanutty taste.  And in case you're wondering why I ate squid, I am willing to break with my otherwise fairly strict vegetarianism in order to try new things.  Perhaps this indicates that I have weak moral standards, but I like to think that it means I strike while the iron's hot and opportunity is knocking.

After we were done at the park, my buddy and I split from the rest of our group so that we could go to her apartment and meet her family and have dinner.  My homestay buddy lives with her two sisters and mom and dad, but I only met one of the sisters, and the parents.  They were all absolutely lovely and very cute (the mother gave me a big hug as soon as I walked in the door), and my homestay partner had made sure to let her mother know I was vegetarian and she cooked a meat-free meal for me.  Their apartment was a reasonable size, but modest compared to the size of homes back in PA.  The funny thing was, though their home was fairly modest, they had the newest and shiniest TV I think I've ever seen, a factor of living in the home country of Samsung, I suppose.  I've noticed that everywhere: the buildings and general environs might be a bit "shabby" to American eyes, but their technology is lightyears ahead of ours.

After dinner we watched a bit of Korean TV, where a magician bent a spoon in half without touching it, and made coins pass through the walls of bottles.  Interesting.  We then watched a movie, but not before my homestay buddy went through all the Facebook photos of me, and kept making approving noises every time a picture of my and my boyfriend came up.  I don't know if it's a Korean thing, or a college-age girl thing, but whether or not you have a boyfriend seems to be a hot topic for discussion.  At dinner last night, the conversation was on something completely unrelated to relationships or boyfriends or anything, and then out of the blue, I hear "Helen has a boyfriend!"  I still don't know why or for whose benefit that was said, but apparently it had some sort of significance to something.

The next morning we woke up, and I took a sort of half-shower.  I say it was a half, because the shower was more European-style, where the showerhead was handheld, and there was nowhere to hook it.  I'm not co-ordinated enough to use those well, and especially not when there's no shower curtain, as there was in this case, so I resorted to just splashing myself with water from the bath tap.  (Not to mention I couldn't figure out how to direct the water to the shower head away from the bath tap, so I figured this was the safest way to avoid watery disaster.)  The mother had made us pumpkin soup (seems to be Korean oatmeal), and we had a plate of cherry tomates and grapes.  The grapes here are literally 2 to 3 times the size of the ones we have at home, and are delicious.  My homestay buddy was able to suck the insides out of the grapes and not eat the skin, but this is a skill I discovered I do not have.  I suppose it's because our grapes at home are so small that accounts for why I never learned to eat them this way - take the skin off of PA grapes, and what'd you'd have left would be the size of a pea.  In the morning, the mother of my homestay buddy also gave me some lovely presents to take home, but I won't mention them here, because one of them I was told is for my mother, and I know she's reading this, so I'll keep it a secret.

After breakfast, my buddy took me to the area around Gangnam station, which is known for its shopping.  It kind of reminded me of Michigan Mile in Chicago, with store after store after store, and cafe after cafe after cafe.  I have noticed there are a lot of chains here, but mainly of stores I've never heard of.  There's a Paris Baguette on every corner, tons of Etude House and Ariatum (I might be spelling that wrong, both are beauty stores), and Baskin Robbins seems to have taken over (okay, so I have heard of that one before).  We stopped in a Uniqulo, and I made a quick trip to the Lush I saw.  It's becoming my mission to stop in every international Lush I can, and I'm making some headway towards that goal.  I got some hair conditioner, as two weeks of Korean water and travel shampoo is starting to take its toll.

We then met up with my buddy's mother and sister again, and she drove all of us to a vegetarian buffet (I told you these people were lovely).  It was quite delicious, and made me wish I could find an all-vegetarian restaurant at home.  We then went to a small park for a walk, and then we were dropped off at the subway station to meet back up with the students we were with at Lotte World.  The group of us met in a mall, and then ventured down the street to a sauna/spa.  There were many different sauna rooms, at different temperatures and with different "themes" (one was the "salt" room, one was shaped like a pyramid, one smelled like tea), and spent the afternoon there.  I discovered that I don't seem to sweat a whole lot when I get hot like that, I just get sticky.  This spa also seemed to have a bit of an identity complex, as there were arcade games in the hallways, and a magic show going on as we left.  There were a lot of kids there with their parents, so I suppose it is more of a "take the family and spend the day!" kind of a place, rather than a "tranquil retreat," the way we normally think of US spas.

After the sauna, we went to a bar/restaurant and had plates and plates and plates of food, including Korean pizza, some cheesy corn thing which was delicious, and makgeolli mixed with soda.  It was all very yummy, but quite filling, and I think I'm going to come home much larger than when I left.

Today so far has been "normal," in that we had a lecture on Korean film this morning, and watched a Korean movie this afternoon, called "The King and the Clown."  It was possibly the most bizarre movie I have ever seen, so I feel I am in no position to really make any kind of commentary on it.

The cafeteria set up a suggestion board for what people want to eat, and in response to the one suggestion that was written about five times, they had hot coffee with breakfast this morning.  Perfection.  The weather is also quite hot today, and is supposed to stay that way for the rest of this program.  It had been raining off and on for nearly all of last week, but now it's stopped and the sun is out.  Makes me wish I owned more clothes appropriate for summer weather.  I also think I am getting a cold, there has been one going around, and for the past two days, when I go to sleep and get up in the morning, I have a scratchy throat.  And that scratchiness hasn't really gone away yet today.  Yippee.  I'm sure my water bottle isn't helping things, considering I haven't washed it out in over 2 weeks, so all my germs are just swimming around in there.  Wonderful.  I think I'm going to work on that right now . . .

Bendy Straw

Today, I saw the most awesome straw ever.  On my box of grape juice this morning there was a straw, but unlike any I had ever seen before.  It was different from the flexi-straws known to all who come in contact with juice boxes (namely, children and their handlers), in that there was no section for bending, rather, it consisted of two plastic tubes nested inside each other, and a locking mechanism that kept it extended once the tubes were extended.  Sorry to offend anyone, but it very much reminded me of a compact tampon applicator.  Actually quite smart, in my opinion, as this plastic was sturdier than the kind to be found in normal flexi-straws, and it actually reached the bottom of the box, to retrieve every last grape-y drop of juice.

Today's activities consisted of two lectures, one on Korean Politics (though it turned out to just be more like a general intro to policy-making considerations regardless of country), and one on Korean Food.  Nothing particularly remarkable happened at either, though the food lecture was interesting to me, as when I was younger I considered becoming a chef, and I still like to think that I have a better-than-average knowledge of food, though that's probably just an inflated ego that comes from watching the Food Network and thinking that actually counts as culinary school.

This afternoon until dinner (meaning the next 45 minutes) should be quiet, and I plan to continue work on my term paper on Christianity in South Korea.  It's an interesting topic, but I'm finding it hard to focus here.  Maybe it's just the fact that I'm not used to living with 10 other people, or the time change, or whatever, but normally I could bang out a five-page paper in maybe an hour or two (rough draft, of course), but here I'm slogging away at a snail's pace.  It's quite annoying.  But maybe that's just because our group got a B on our last group paper so it's dashed my spirits, as I thought it was quite good.  Speaking of group papers, we have another to write after dinner.  Darn.

Tomorrow and the next day make up our "Korean Homestay Weekend" part of this program, where we get randomly paired with another student, and then spend the weekend with them.  My homestay buddy seems nice enough, but I'd never met her until the names list came out and she figured out who I was, so I feel a bit odd knowing that I'll be crashing at her house tomorrow . . . I suppose on the bright side, pretty much everyone is in the same boat, though two of the other girls from Cedar Crest are going with girls who live in our suite, so they're not complete strangers.  Hmm.

In other news, I feel terrible that I keep messing up everyone's names here.  My brain just can't seem to wrap around the Korean names, and my mouth refuses to pronounce them correctly.  So annoying.

Also, it's very slippery here, and I'm lucky I haven't fallen and broken my neck yet.  There seems to be a high percentage of marble used as flooring and sidewalk here, which seems to be one of the dumbest possible moves, as it's constantly raining or misting or something (at least, it has been this week), and the marble gets impossibly slick when it's wet.  They really should have stuck with concrete.

Movie Night

So, today was an action-packed day.

This morning (which already seems like ages ago), we had a lecture on Religions in South Korea.  I felt kind of bad for the professor, as it was evident that he was brilliant, but he deviated a bit from the lecture notes he provided, and threw a lot of facts out without giving a clear framework for how they all fit together . . . fascinating, and I now have quite a few bits of useful information for my term paper on Christianity in Korea, but I do kind of wish he had been a better presenter so that everyone else could have been as interested as I was (I'm a Religious Studies minor, so it's kind of my thing), and also so that I could have followed along better myself.

We then had lunch, featuring some tofu cakes which were DELICIOUS, and then a group of us ventured out to Itaewon, which is kind of like foreigner central for Seoul.  Every guide book we've read on the place has been sure to mention the fact that in Itaewon, there are clothes in sizes big enough to fit fat foreigners.  Always useful.

While there we stopped at a coffee shop and I had a Vanilla Latte, which was absolutely wonderful.  On this trip I have overall been drinking less coffe than at home, but the coffee I have been drinking has been far fancier than at home.  Since we have to order coffee from a shop, as it's not supplied with any of our meals (except for the few times when sweetened coffee-in-a-can is given, and that's more like soda), I've been tending to get nicer coffe drinks than just straight black coffee.  Lattes, cappuccinos, you name it, I've probably drunk it on this trip.  Iced and hot.  One of the other girls from Cedar Crest and I had thought we ordered the same drink, just that mine was hot and hers was iced, but somehow the orders got lost in translation, and I got a hot vanilla latte like I ordered, and she got a sweet potato latte.  The taste was not bad (we all tried it in an attempt to figure out what it was), but the chunks of potato that came up through the straw were kind of off-putting.  This whole trip has been a rather interesting culinary experience . . . you're never quite sure what you'll be eating until you try it, and many times you still don't know what you've had even after you've eaten it.

In Itaewon I didn't buy anything, but there were plenty of shops offering their appealing-to-tourist wares.  T-shirts that say "KOREA!" and boxers printed with the design of the money are just some of the items available.  There were also lots of shops offering more department-store-like clothing wares, but we didn't have much chance to shop there, as there were a number of guys in our group, and they might not have liked being drug down by a number of girls trying on clothes.

Then we returned to SWU in order to meet up with the group who had pre-ordered tickets to see Harry Potter this evening.  I and three other girls decided we would go to the theater but see something else, as two of the girls had promised to see it with others once they got home, and I and my roommate were simply interested in seeing something other than Harry Potter.

As we ventured out to catch the bus to go to the theater, it was raining, and we formed a little umbrella brigade heading towards the bus stop, and as we were running just a bit late, we ended up running for a bit down the sidewalk, trying to get to the bus in time.  Lucky none of us slipped and broke our necks, considering the sidewalks are somewhat slippery, surprising considering rain is common in Korea, at least at this time of year.

The cinema we went to was in Lotte department store, which features plenty of levels of clothes, a level of restaurants, and the movie theater way at the top, on the 10th floor.  Which we reached by using the escalators.  I don't think I've ever ridden so many escalators in quick succession as I did this evening.  The four of us non-Potter-ers decided on watching Transformers 3, and we ended up with the 3D version, as it was the only one playing at a reasonable time.  The theater had no ticket counter, but instead a large bank of standing touch-screen machines where you can order your tickets, pick your exact seats, and pay.  The longer I stay in this country, the more I realize how behind the US is when it comes to technology.

We then had a few minutes to kill and went downstairs to get some coffee (I told you there's a coffee-buying increase here) and also stopped in the restroom, which featured smiley faces on the toilet lids, and a little mouthwash dispenser by the sinks.   Admittedly, this was a swanky store complex (Lotte is a big brand), but I don't think I have ever seen such a well-equipped bathroom before.

Back upstairs on the theater floor, there were a few little shops to entertain while we waited to go in, all featuring the cuteness that seems to pervade Southeast Asia.  Little happy keychains and pens and whatnot, all adorable.  Once we got in the theater and watched the previews, the one that cracked me up the most was the one asking you to go get some beer with your popcorn - I know this country is much more relaxed than the US when it comes to alcohol, but I keep getting surprised.  I was also surprised by the TV in the toilet stall.

I won't talk about the movie much, in order to not give out spoilers for anyone who wants to still see it, but I did like it.  Especially in 3D, I had never seen a movie completely in 3D before, so that was a nice treat.

On the way back, we took a taxi, because we had trouble finding the bus stop for the bus number we wanted, and I was astonished by the cleanness and roominess of the taxi.  I should really stop being surprised by how nice things are here, but it keeps happening.

Tomorrow, the menu says there are to be hotcakes for breakfast, something we're all (at least all the American students I've talked to) looking forward to.  I really hope that hotcakes mean American pancakes, and not something else.  But I've been wrong before, yesterday the menu said "Cherry Tea" when we were having Cherry Kool-Aid.  Whatever.  Close enough.

Board Breaking and Breaking the Boredom

The Taekwondo lesson this morning was fascinating.  First there was a show of Taekwondo moves by those who would be our teachers, and it was impressive.  However, I did notice that the boards they were breaking as part of their show seemed to have charges set in them, as there would be a flash when they were hit, as well as a puff of smoke.  Unless I seriously missed something when it comes to human anatomy and the abilities of the body, I don't think that was just created by the force of the board being broken.  But I wonder why the charges were set?  This is something I must look into.

As for the lesson, I had been expecting a dinky little lesson, enough to appease curious Western teenage minds, but it turned out to be a bit more than that.  Had I known, I would have worn clothes that were not nearly so warm.  We learned four kinds of blocks (high, low, inside and outside), and four kicks (front, side, roundhouse, and drop), as well as a few self defense moves.  Then we were given time to practice with a foamy target held by the (very brave) volunteers.  I say very brave because we were very bad, and there was a high probability of one of them getting kicked in the face, or other undesirable area (not like there are desirable areas to be kicked in, though some are more preferable than others).

After all that, if we wanted to, we were given the chance to break a board by kicking it.  I hadn't planned on it because I wasn't terribly interested, but one of my suitemates, who usually doesn't get really into anything got extremely animated and wanted to do it and have me go with her, so I went.  I didn't kick through the board on the first try, mostly because I couldn't get the order of which leg you jumped with and with leg you kicked with right.  I knew I wanted to kick with my right leg, but somehow that move required kicking the left leg as well, and my brain couldn't process all this at once.  The second time I made it through, and they gave me the board to take as proof that I did it.  Now I really hope the TSA doesn't mind me taking it home in my luggage.

After that and after lunch (today it featured both spaghetti and pasta salad and rice . . . a little heavy on the starches), we watched a movie called JSA: Joint Security Area.  It was highly entertaining, and I recommend it.  I won't say to much about it in order not to give the plot away (and because I'm lazy), but it would be interesting even to someone not really interested in Korea, it's a very sweet and sad story, though filled with quite a lot of humorous moments.

After the movie, we were going to go watch Harry Potter, as it opens here earlier than it does in the States, but then we realized that the tickets would be sold out, as it only opened this morning, so that will be part of tomorrow's agenda.  Instead we just wandered around outside of school, and I got some more perfume as I am quickly going through the bottle I brought, as I am trying to make up for the washed-clothes funk, and the fact that it's always hot and humid, as well as trying to do a better job of matching these Korean girls in their made-up-ed-ness.  They still always look cute and put together, and I feel like a slob.  Maybe it's just because I'm taller and fatter than 90% of them that does it.  Or maybe it's because I dress like an American - ie, goofy.

HHI

The club night at the hotel went well, though we all agreed that the DJ seemed to have ADD, as he would only get maybe halfway through a song before switching over to a new one.  And he also liked to stop the music to shout out things, but he only spoke Korean, so when he did this, half of the dancefloor would just stop moving out of confusion.

Yesterday we briefly visited HHI - Hyundai Heavy Industries.  This was mainly the shipbuilding division of Hyundai, and we were given a very scripted tour of the area and told not to take any pictures.  It was interesting to learn about the founder of Hyundai, but the whole thing was so Stepford: "Here are his shoes, which he wore for 30 years because he believed in being frugal," "Hyundai cares about its workers," etc, that it was hard not to believe some deep dark secret was lurking underneath it all.  But maybe I'm reading too much into all that.

That was followed by an unending bus ride back to SWU, with lunch at a rest stop.  I ate something called a "pizza hot dog" because I had heard there wasn't actually a hot dog in it - there wasn't any pizza either, it just tasted like a blob of BBQ sauce that was battered and deep fried.  Strange, but I was hungry.  Luckily for dinner we had actual pizza from Korean Dominos, so that was enjoyable.

All my clothes smell are gross right now, because though my wash from about a week ago is dry now, it took far to long to dry and had time to get funky.  I don't really know how to avoid this problem, because everyone says the dryer in the wash room doesn't really work and the laundry soap provided is unscented.  Maybe I should spray everything with perfume after I get it out of the wash and before I hang it up to dry?

Today we are to learn Taekwondo, though we only have about a 2-hour lesson, so I'm not sure how much knowledge we'll gain in that limited timeframe.  We're also watching a Korean movie this afternoon called JSA: Joint Security Area.  The writeup sounds interesting, but at the moment I'm not even sure if it's in Korean or English, which may or may not make things a bit confusing, as I've found that a lot tends to get lost in translation through subtitles.

Gyeongju

Today we had our tours around Gyeongju.  This meant about 3 hours of actually touring, with about 6 30-minute naps on the bus sprinkled in-between.

In the swanky hotel we're at, we had a full breakfast, and I hadn't realized how much I'd missed pancakes and coffee for breakfast until this morning.  It was a treat, but now knowing I probably won't have it again (at least not until I get home) after tomorrow morning is kind of depressing.  Not that I don't like the Korean food, but it is different.  I had thought that perhaps the meals would be very Americanized to make them more acceptable to us exchange students, but they haven't seemed that way.  Maybe the Korean students would disagree, but considering I have to ask what half (on average, sometimes not for much, sometimes for everything) of everything is, I'd say the meals are fairly Korean.

Then we went to Bulguksa Temple.  Unfortunately I couldn't catch what much of the tour guide said about it, seeing as there was one guide for a group of about 30 of us, but I did get that it was very old, and very sacred, and when my "bus buddy" (we have assigned seating on the buses) and I walked around, just the two of us, it was incredibly peaceful.  Made me kind of wish I was just visiting South Korea by myself and not in this huge group like I am.

After that we went to Seokgulam Grotto.  There was a beautiful statue of Buddha there, as well as hundreds of paper lanterns that families had written their names on, strung on wooden frames.  Made me wish that America had more of a culture where everyone was on the same page as far as festivals and things to do along those lines . . . I can't think of anything similar to festival lanterns in the US.

After that was a lunch of Bibimbap, which was delicious, but we've had it twice in two days now, so everyone is kind of OD-ed on it.

Then we went to the beach of the East Sea, which was absolutely wonderful.  Though it had rained earlier in the day, it was sunny at the shore, and the water was refreshing.  A number of people got thrown in, but considering I had gone in willingly, I avoided such issues.

Then we came back to the hotel to change, and then went out to Cheonmachong for dinner.  In that area there are many burial mounds and a lot of treasure has been found there.  The burial mounds were something to see, as they were quite pronounced and there's no way they could pass for natural.  I think now I want to go out west in the US to see our American Indian burial mounds.

Now we're back at the hotel once again, and tonight is club night at the club in the basement of the hotel, starting in about an hour.  The first round of drinks is free, which, given how much I know the room I'm sitting in costs, as well as everything that's been supplied for on this trip, makes me wonder who is paying for all this.  All I had to do was pay for my plane ticket and a $200 registration fee . . . that wouldn't even begin to scrape the surface of how much this program must cost to run.  Hmm . . .

The photos for everything I'm mentioning are on Facebook, as I assume that anyone reading this is my friend on Facebook, and it saves me time to not have to upload twice.  If anyone isn't on Facebook and wants to see the photos of everything I've described, drop me a line and I can send the links to the albums.

South Korean Weekend

It's now been a week since I've gotten here!  Time flies when you're having fun.

Currently my roommate and I are in our room at the very snazzy Hyundai Hotel in Gyeongju.  This ranks up there as one of the nicest hotels I have stayed at.  For some reason I had been under the impression this place was going to be like a hostel or something, and I couldn't have been more wrong.  I feel like we're tainting it with our collective presence of like 120 college students.

Yesterday was the International Entertainment Night, and we performed a dance that goes to the song "Nobody" by the K-Pop group Wonder Girls.

We didn't win the grand prize of 150,000 won (no surprise, there were some GOOD performances last night), but it was okay, considering participation was mandatory.

Today was day one of our 3-day field trip to Gyeongju.  Mostly we just sat in the bus for hours on end, taking two breaks at Korean rest stops, and also at a very nice restaurant for dinner.  In the morning we stopped at a Korean Folk Village, which was supposed to be a replica of an authentic historical village, and it was nice, except for the rain which complicated things a bit.

As an aside, there is a cup sanitizer in the cafeteria back at SWU that fascinates me.  I can't find anything online about it (probably because the pages I need are in Korean), but it's interesting.  The only cups in the caf are thin metal, and when you get them out of this cabinet, they are warm and presumably germ-free.  I should remember to take a picture of it before I leave.  For how advanced America likes to think it is, we certainly don't sanitize our cups like the Koreans.  Nor do we have high-def flat screen TVs in the buses for watching movies on long bus rides.

Music and More

Today was rather a full day.  In the morning, we listened to a performance of music done with traditional instruments, and then were allowed to have an attempt at playing them ourselves.  That actually went better than I had expected, but with a group as large as ours (over 100 students total), there were no were near enough instruments for everyone, so there were some backlog and sharing issues.

Following that we left for Samsung-Dong and Bukchon Villiage, which are both these little authentic areas of Seoul, with old-style houses and some art galleries and little shops.  It kind of reminded me of parts of the Mediterranean or little cutesy towns along the coast like Martha's Vineyard or whatever.  We stopped in  a coffee shop that's part of a chain called Beansbins, and got Ice Cream Waffles.  Apparently Belgian Waffles with Ice Cream are a big thing here, and it makes me wonder why a chain carrying them has never caught on at home.  With the American appetite what it is, you'd think they would.

We then continued walking past the US Embassy and the Blue House, which is kind of like the Korean White House.  My guide book had said that it was just offices, but when I asked the Korean girls with us about it, they said that the President actually lives there.  I'm starting to worry about trusting my guide book too much, as it's making me say things that make me look like an idiot to the Koreans.  Hmm.

We then went to a small park in Seoul, which for the life of me I cannot find the name of, but it was directly across from The Plaza hotel.  There was a stage set up (apparently sponsored by UNESCO for some reason) and a band playing.  After that a group of little schoolgirls in cute little blue-and-white outfits with bows came up and did a song-and-dance performance for the moms who stood in front of the stage.  We sat farther back and clapped when they finished too because it was cute, but we looked a little bit like creepers by doing so.  We kept getting stares from the Koreans in the park for exploding in laughter or whatever.  Typical American tourists.

Then one of the Koreans said we should try traditional Korean liqour.  We thought that this would mean getting up and heading to a restaurant, but it turns out that it's a-okay to drink alcohol in public in South Korea.  So they went off to a grocery to get some makgeolli, which is sort of like a rice wine.  It was very strange to sit in a park and drink and not feel like a total delinquent.

Then we walked to a theater where we saw a performance of the NANTA Cookin' show.  It's like STOMP with food and chefs, and was quite entertaining.  It really made me want to go see the actual STOMP, because I enjoyed this and would like to see how it differs from the US version.  Also, there was audience participation last night, which always makes me nervous during a show, spending the whole time trying to avoid getting called on to do anything.

Now it's the next morning, and I slept until 10am.  I guess I was sleepier than I thought.

Observations

This may sound like a retarded point coming from me, someone who has traveled quite a bit, but the other day it struck me how similar everyone's life is across the globe, just performed in a slightly different way.  I saw a woman texting on her cell phone, and because I couldn't read what she was saying, my brain was saying that she must be saying some completely original Korean thing that I couldn't understand.

And that's when it struck me . . . she was probably texting something very similar to the texts that I send.  to friends, to family, whatever.  Just because it looked different, my brain was thinking the ideas behind her words must be different too, when it obviously is just a matter of not being able to interpret what the words mean, not that their meaning is truly all that different from anyone else's.

Kind of a weird point, and somewhat hard to explain, but it makes sense to me.

Blood Typing

Ever since I've been in Korea, all the websites I vist know I'm in Korea, and are asking me questions appropriate to that.  Would I like this page in Korean?  Would I like it translated?  Would I like to add my Korean name to my Facebook page?  What is my blood type for my profile on Facebook?

Wait a second.  What about that last one?

Turns out that Koreans say that blood type can indicate personality.  Kind of like our horoscopes at home.  My personality does seem to closely match my blood type (A), which means that I am kind of shy, perfectionistic, and sweet.  The perfectionistic part was confirmed when I showed my dormmates something on my laptop and had to move my keyboard protecter . . . yeah.  I'm a bit of a nerd.

I meant to mention yesterday that I ate something that I didn't know what it was at lunch . . . and even when my roommate explained, I still didn't know what it was.  I had never heard of "bracken" before, but I ate it and it wasn't bad.

As to today's activities, we had a lecture on Korean history, and this was followed by some talk on Korean family dynamics.  It was quite interesting, but I don't think I have ever been so lost in a lecture before.  Mainly it was because the lecturer was so intelligent, talked so fast, and Korean history is so confusing.  I never realized how easy we have it in the US only having to take care of 300 years of domestic events.

After that was lunch, which in part featured french fries, which we delicious.  We also ate with forks and knives today, which was different.  It seems to be that when there is a large chunk of meat to be consumed, forks and knives are supplied.  Not eating meat, it just means that I get to eat Korean food with non-Korean utensils.

After lunch, we left to visit a pottery-making museum and workshop.  We also got a chance to make our own pottery, but mainly it was us just touching the clay while the potter worked.  After the cups/bowls/vases were formed, we got to carve our desired designs into the pottery.  I made / watched the making of a bowl with double sides . . . hard to explain, but when we get it back from the kiln, hopefully I will be able to take a picture and show what it's like.  The experience was kind of like extremely guided early-stage Paint-Some-Pottery.

There was also a large artist's co-op attached to the pottery museum (at least I think it was a co-op . . . kind of hard to tell precisely when everything is in Korean . . . ), but I didn't buy anything there.  Partly because I left my wallet on the bus (not like I lost it, but we were told we could leave our belongings on the bus until we got back, and I didn't know shopping would be optionally involved), but partly because I don't need anything.  Especially given that I'll get my piece of pottery that I made back just in time to figure out a way to shove it into my luggage.  I'll definitely need to use the duffle bag that I brought for extra clothes, though I might be able to fit everything into my main suitcase, I'd definitely go over the weight limit.

It was our first rainy day today, and it's also the first day that I didn't take any pictures.  Good, because I'm soon going to get terribly confused out of everything that I've photographed.

In about five minutes I have to leave to work on the first of our "Group Discussion Papers."  Though no one really knows how we're going to go about this, apparently we are going to meet in a group of about 12 people, all discuss something, and then write a paper about it.  All this evening.  And we don't know how long it's supposed to be, or what about.  Scary.

I hate group projects.  I'm a loner when it comes to academics.

Pocari Sweat Love

Today I tried Pocari Sweat from a vending machine and I LOVE IT.  According to Wiki, it's a Japanese soft drink, and it's delicious.  Kind of like Gatorade, but better.  I'll have to see if I can find it when I get home.

I'm not sure if I can do a full post tonight, due to the fact that I am beat and kind of losing my ability to think or type clearly, but I can try.

Today's breakfast featured cocoa chex mixed with corn flakes, another odd mix, as well as apple slices and french toast and some other foods, all eaten with chopsticks and a spoon.  I seem to be getting better at chopsticks, except in the cases where it is acceptable to simply spear the food you are trying to eat, and I keep trying to grasp it between two sticks.

Today we had a lecture on Korean Contemporary Issues from a wonderful professor.  Everyone seemed to think he was too longwinded, and he did go past his scheduled time, but he was obviously quite learned on the topics he was speaking about, so I didn't mind the time.

Then was lunch . . . which I honestly don't remember . . .

This was then followed by a trip to Gyeongbokgung Palace, which reminded me a bit of the Forbidden City, but smaller, and more park-like.  I tried to hear the guide, but she was only one guide for somewhere on the order of 40 people, so it kind of got out of hand.  We also later found out it was her very first day as a guide, so I'm sure that had something to do with it.  I felt sorry for her when I heard that, we were a tough group to guide (perhaps that had to do with the fact that we seemed to have all the rowdy guys with us).

We then went to Insadong, a little shopping district, and got dinner at a waffle-and-ice-cream place, that also seemed to enjoy playing Jason Mraz and Maroon 5 for its playlist.  I got a few items, but will not reveal what they are, in case the recipients might be reading this.  =)

Following that, we went to the stream that runs through the center of Seoul, a wonderful river in which we saw ducks and herons and fish and which has waterfalls and rocks and everything built in for fun.

Then we went to a museum about the Korean alphabet and its creator, which was lovely, but I was too tired at this point to really absorb any more information.

I know this post is short and choppy, but my brain won't divulge any more colorful details about what it is I actually did today, I suppose it's reached its "full" point and has shut off all further activity.  I don't know.

10 Minutes to 11pm Head Count

Okay, so I've got 10 minutes until our RA will stop by our room to a) make sure we are all there and b) to give us the info for the next day's activities.  These meetings are every night at 11pm . . . which means you have to stay up until 11pm, or if you fall asleep, you have to get back up.  I've been choosing the former option in order to not drive myself insane.

Today was the first day of lectures, and in the morning we had a crash course in Korean language and writing.  It was fascinating, but about halfway through my brain reached its saturation point and I couldn't learn any more . . . but we kept going, and my poor language learning partner was trying to not go crazy when I asked her "Are you Korea?" (as in, the country) instead of "Are you Korean?" (as in, the nationality)(that little 'n' on the end can make such a difference).

After that, in the afternoon, there were ice-breaking activities, such as smashing and eating as much watermelon as possible, pushing people on little plastic carts, and trying to get as many people into a Polaroid photo as possible (sounds easy, isn't, especially when the camera is NOTHING like you would expect it to look like).

- - - - - - - -

I didn't write much before the meeting.  Now I'm writing in between working on posting photos on Facebook.  Where was I?  Oh yes.  The games today.  The ice-breakers were okay, but our team didn't do well, and won only one out of five activities.  The prizes were more or less the same if you won or lost, everyone ended up with Korean snack food.

After that I went back to the room and had planned on just relaxing until dinner, until someone said that they were going to the COEX Mall with some other students, and we could all go if we wanted.  As it is, the group just kept growing and growing and we eventually split up into a group of 12 and ventured forth on the subways and buses and whatnot.  Seoul has an EXTENSIVE transport system that I don't even dare begin to attempt on my own . . . our Korean guides are invaluable.

The COEX Mall is HUGE and very modern.  We stopped into a store that had tons and tons of cutesy little things (imagine generic Hello Kitty on any accessory imaginable).  Pill cases, folders, notebooks, pens . . . all with adorable graphics.  I got a planner featuring (what I think is) an adorable cat figure.  I don't know the name or line of the product, but I think it's neat.  It also has some English phrases on it to make it "cool," but a cursory examination of the sentences makes me think they're a little out there.  I'll to examine them later to see if my impressions are correct.  We also stopped at a bookstore, where I got a children's book featuring (once again) a cat family.  The Korean girls with us said that the book is part of a series, the first book so popular that the author decided to write some more.  It's also been made into a TV series that is popular with little kids.  I was going to get a book in Korean that I already know or that I know the library has (like Pinkalicious, which I did see), but then I decided it would be better to just get something brand new and not bring back American culture just translated into Korean.

We stopped in the huge food court to get some dinner, and though I wasn't hungry, a Korean girl offered to share some of her supper with me, and it did hit the spot.  The soup and rice had a tiny sliver of beef in it, and what surprised me was how EXACTLY it tasted like my grandmother's roast beef.  Maybe that's just because I haven't had roast beef in over a year, or maybe I just got lucky.

We then went to the COEX Aquarium, which is more like an aquarium / interactive art exhibit / zoo.  There were all kinds of animals, not just fish, and some really bizarre aquariums in one part.  And some fun-house mirrors.

Then was the adventure back, which involved 2 buses and 2 subways.  The subways are exceptionally clean, and the buses surprisingly bumpy and hard to maintain balance on.  But that might have just been the lack of motor control I had after that much walking and at that degree of exhaustion.

It's nearly midnight here, and I got up at 6am this morning (not intentionally, my body clock is just terrible confused).  I think it's time for bed . . .

Time for Some Pictures

This is a shot of the interior of the building where the dorms and lectures and cafeteria are in . . . the first two floors are normal, but from there on up the building is a hollow square, with the center open down to the third floor.  Hence, you can see the outside that's really the inside in this picture.

Another random combination: birds in cages and a vending machine!  Actually, maybe the bigger question to this picture: why are there birds in cages in the building in the first place?

Seoul street.  Actually more like a boulevard.

Seoul Tower!  We didn't go to the top, but there's a lookout station on the side, and we did look out over that.  We also got coffee in the shops inside, and used these little key-chain vending machines (I got a panda cell-phone charm).

Culture clash: China Terra Cotta Soldier standing next to the Seoul Tower.

Lock wall next to the Seoul Tower.  These are "lovers locks" where a couple will go and write their names on a lock and then clip it to the wall, and throw away the key over the side.  I saw this the last time I was in South Korea (I was just on Cheju Island for a day), but there that was only a few locks on a bridge, this was wall after wall after wall of locks . . . and they had even set up wire frames in the shape of trees that were covered with locks.

Seoul at night (camera is not good at taking night shots). =(

Another indication (after the locks) that this location is popular with lovers.  Lit-up heart that tons of people were taking their picture in front of.  (Actually, being there and seeing all the couples made me miss my own boyfriend . . . not because I wanted him there so we could take our picture in front of the heart - we are not particularly into romantic-sappy things like that - but seeing other people with their significant other kind of made me miss mine.)

Also, a squished-won machine.  I don't think I had the correct change to actually use it, so I took a picture instead.

We also went in a cable car down the side of the mountain that the tower was on, but I couldn't get any good pictures of that.  It took us 2 subways and 2 buses to get to the tower, and then 2 subways back.  The subways were CLEAN as all get out, and they also had a set of doors on both the subway car and on the platform . . . . a simple way to avoid that whole fear-of-the-third-rail issue.  (My mom is always terrified I'm going to fall of the ledge of the subway platform when we're riding together.)  

At the moment that's all the photo-uploading and typing I can do.  It's 1130p and I need to go take a shower and get ready for bed . . . tomorrow I get up at 730a with breakfast from 800-850a and then the first lecture starts at 9a.  Nothing like a morning class . . .