To Sejong and the Macabees

The End

2011-07-17T10:09:00.000+09:00

Hi there,

Sorry for the hiatus. I am now back in the States, as of a little more than a month ago.

Sadly, my grandfather (my number one follower), passed away a few days before I left Korea for the States.
I was mostly keeping this blog for him, so I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue posting after that.
But I figure I may as well finish it up.

Just to make a brief summary, my last few weeks in Korea were great, but hectic as usual. I finished up my teaching position at the three 공부방. I stayed up till 3 am or later making copies of the movies my students had created to give to them. (Thanks Nik for all the help!!!)
As much as my English teaching was stressful and frustrating, I feel that it was a good experience for me and I really do miss my students.

YulRin Church students

SamDong - This pic was taken moments before all the boys got in a HUGE fight. Can't even manage to take a picture without someone getting injured...

My two students at Aewha deaf school - so cute!

The one regret I had was that I wasn't able to take drumming lessons because I had Korean class and English teaching. However, through a stroke of luck, I ended up connecting with Noreum Machi, a professional Korean drumming troupe and got to take lessons from Oh HyunJu, the most awesome instructor ever. She is sooo extremely talented; I still can't believe I got to study under her. I feel I learned a lot from her in a short amount of time, and everyone in the troupe was super friendly.

my teacher and me

a bunch of fulbrighters came to the concert

I was mostly busy with saying goodbye to everyone. This time it was a lot harder, because I don't know when I'll be back. Last year, I knew I was coming back in a few months, so it was only temporary. This time, it seemed much more permanent, as I will be starting a 2 year graduate program this fall in the States.

last meeting with HyunJoo unni

final farewell to my former host family - I miss them!!!

Mugong and I visiting Changhyun at his military base

Sogang's Sign Language Club - they were all so sweet!

best night ever - playing frisbee with my 3급 classmates in dongdaemun park

As a thank you, I made dinner for my host family at Nik's house. Our friend, Hyunjeong also came over. Man his apt. really heated up from using the stove and the oven, but I pulled it off. ^^

Since Nik, Emily and I are splitting ways and spreading all over the US, we decided we needed an epic "final hurrah" - a trip to Busan. Timing wise, we were rather crunched, but it was totally worth it. We got back to Seoul the day before I flew out and the day I moved out of my host family's house to spend the night at Eunji unni's. Whew. But sooo worth it.

in Pohang with Dewi for a final farewell before heading down to Busan

our freaking sweet hotel!

at the International Sandcastle competition in Haeundae, Busan

sooo sweet! Em and Nik got my a BR ice cream cake for an early bday celebration!!

Diet coke and mentos experiment anyone?...

Mentos and Diet Coke = fail. BUT lots of funnnnn!

I got back to Seoul and ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. I had to cancel my phone, withdraw my money, buy last minute presents, get back to my host fam's to finish up last min. packing, eat dinner with them, and be ready to leave when Eunji and her mom arrived.

withdrawing all my money - CA$H

final meal with the host fam. - chinese delivery

My host sister, mother, and brother~

Well, its been good. Thanks for reading my blog. Hope you enjoyed it. Til next time Korea!

-Lia

Continuing the Update...

2011-05-17T02:28:00.000+09:00

Okay, I'm splitting my entries up so they don't get too long, although they tend to be long anyhow...

Anyhow, on the weekend, I met up with JiYoon unni (I met her in MN last summer, but she has since come back to Korea) and we went to this really cool art center, Zien Art Space, and made our own pottery!!! We both ended up making jewelry boxes. The place will glaze and fire it and send it back to us, so I haven't gotten to see the final product yet.
There was also a museum dedicated to a famous Korean pop artist, Nam June Paik. Pretty cool!!!

my jewelry box

unni's jewelry box

TV garden!!!

Jiyoon unni and me

That following Wednesday, Nathan gave a talk at the deaf school I volunteer at to the high school students. I was really impressed because Nathan gave the whole thing (twice, as the students were split into two groups) in Korean Sign Language. Wow!
Some of the student's comments were pretty funny. One of them was like, "why does he (meaning Nathan) keep writing on the board in English?!" Most of them got that Nathan grew up in the US, but I think the fact that Nathan looks Korean threw the kids for a loop~
Anyhow, I think it was a really great experience for the students - I think any sort of cross cultural communication is beneficial for students. And Nathan is a role model for them; good education and good job.

Nathan talking with the students

Em is a super star~

the kids all really liked her!!!

It was really hilarious because at one point, some of the students were asking Nathan what some of his hobbies were and he mentioned StarCraft (very popular computer game) and the boys instantly perked up! But then, maybe five minutes later, Nathan was talking about how good study habits are really important and crucial to a good future, and the teacher literally nearly jumped with joy. The boy who had perked up upon discussing the computer game looked thoroughly dejected. Em (a Fulbright ETA whom I met through Nik) and I were cracking up. lol!
After the talk, Nathan and I both felt that you could tell which students had had early language exposure and acquisition. Those students were the ones who were inquisitive, actively engaging in dialogue and asking well thought out questions. The students who were more quiet were more recent transfer students~ It was amazing to see such a stark contrast.

high school seniors~

Em, was also the star because, well, she looks very American aka, she's white. One of the students came up to me and told me she was the first American he had ever met. What are Nathan and I then? haha. But, I got what he meant. ^^

On May 5, we had another day off from school, as it was Children's Day. Oh, I do love children!!! Especially when they get me a day off! haha.
Nik and I went with my classmate Chika and her friends to an airshow way down south, near Oido. It was really cool!!! The coolest planes were the Black Eagles, the Korean Airforce demo team and this American woman who did solo flights.

Post-it Notes!!! Go 3M!

Black Eagles

Afterwards, we headed to 오이도 (Oido) which is the last stop on the Seoul metro line 4. It is really famous for 조개 구이 or grilled clams/mussels etc. I really don't like eating those, but so it goes...

gotta work for your food

Anyhow, when we first got there, we were expecting to see this beautiful ocean. We climbed up on the walkway to look out and what we saw looked like a scene from some disaster film. We realized later, the tide hadn't come in yet... Oh.

wasteland...

We stopped by the 어시장 fish market to look around. I totally saw those crayfish things I'd eating the week before, except they were all alive crawling around in a bucket...

Lunch was pretty decent. I ate more seafood that day then I've ever eaten in my life. I mostly stuck to the 갈국수 (noodle soup) which was amazingly delicious. But I did try everything at least once.

that bowl was HUGE! look at the cup next to it.

yeah. I ate that.

The amount of shellfish that came out was impressive!!! I'm surprised we got through it all!!! You just stick the shellfish right on the grill and as they cook, they open up. I felt kinda bad because they were alive...

We found a baby crab inside of one of them. I guess the crab was being eaten until the shellfish became a meal itself.

Anyhow, after lunch, we went out and the tide had come in!!! So, I have now touched the East Sea and the West Sea (the ocean near Oido was the West Sea).
Last year, when I went to Soraksan with my old host family, I really wanted to touch the East Sea. So, I crept close to the water and was leaning forward to touch it when a huge wave came in and doused me... Thankfully, this time, I managed to touch the West Sea without getting my shoes all wet. ^^

tide came in!! me touching the West Sea

funny ajusshis and an ajuma having a picnic on the rocks

On Friday, after work, I met up with Hyunjoo unni and HyunTak oppa for dinner in 종각 (Jongak). That's a really cool area! I need to explore it more... We went to an Indian resturant and ate curry~ ^^

On Saturday, I met up with the CIEE girls!!! 5 out of 8 of us from study abroad are back in Korea!!! Woot! I haven't seen some of them since study abroad, three years ago!!! It was really great seeing everyone and honestly, it felt like almost no time had passed. We kind of just picked up where we left off~ ^^

we made a detour through 이대 Ewah Women's Univ.

I had a most epic Saturday. We (Lonny, KaoNou, Emily, Vianey, and I) met up for brunch in Itaewon at the the Flying Pan, which serves American style breakfasts. They even had hummus!!! Emily and I were very happy.

Afterwards, we made our way over to our old stomping grounds; Yonsei. We stopped by Suzanne's office (our old program coordinator), but obviously she wasn't there, as it was a weekend. So, we gave her a call~ Then we went to the Flea Market in Hongdae, which was really fun! I love the flea market there - you can always find really cool handmade things. I got some cool postcards. However, it was uber crowded, probably because of the holiday weekend.

Lonny and Emily

Vianey, me and Kaonou

Afterwards, Vianey decided to get her hair cut, so we went and found a salon. While we waited, we shopped around Hongdae a bit.
Unfortunately, Vianey did NOT like her haircut. They gave her bangs without asking... Dang Korean hair salons...

We went to On the Boarder (Tex Mex) for dinner. Way way overpriced, but yummy!!! Then, I dragged the remaining girls to Yeoido because my friend was doing a performance there. I actually misunderstood and thought she was doing a poongmul performance. She was actually doing "Rainbow Drops" this acrobatic thing. Unfortunately, I didn't figure that out till later, so we left. (I had planned to go back on Tuesday to watch the actual performance, but it rained and was cancelled... 아쉽다.)

it seemed like a really cool performance... my friend didn't come out til the very end though. She along with her fellow performers made a human web in the air!!! wow.

After Yeoido, we headed to KaoNou's apt. to have a sleepover~ The next morning, Kaonou made us an amazing breakfast! and then Vianey, Emily and I headed over to Shinsegae Dept. store to visit the food court. Seriously, their food court is amazing!!! We grazed and had a food court picnic.
After, Emily and Vianey needed to leave to catch their trains/planes back to their respective cities. (Vianey is teaching English in Jejudo and Emily is still in Pohang.)

먹자!

I met up with Taeseong oppa from camp. I've barely seen him since I got to Korea~ That was fun. We ended up in Itaewon. I swear I rarely go to Itaewon, but I recently its been almost every week!!!

Anyhow, thats all for this post! Till next time!!!

wow! wow! wow! Fanciest Dinner I've Ever Had! And Other Cool Things

2011-05-16T20:05:00.002+09:00

First off, two weekends ago I had dinner with my level 3 classmates. It was really fun to all get together again, since I don't have class with any of them anymore... ㅠㅠ
We ended up going to the Italian Plate in Sinchon. I thought it'd be fun because the waiter there is really friendly and loves meeting foreigners, which is exactly what all of my classmates are. haha.
Almost everyone who is still in Korea made it, which was great!
And the waiter was so nice!!! and gave us two free pizzas!! wow!

After dinner, 위숭 WeeSung and I wandered around Sinchon for a bit. I bought my first lotto ticket in Korea. We had an entire chapter in our level 4 book about winning the lotto in Korea! However, sadly, I didn't win. Boo.

I also went to OKitchen in Itaewon for dinner with a few friends. My friend HyunJeong's friend's boyfriend (its sounds more complicated than it is) works there in the kitchen. When she invited Nik and I, I had no idea what kind of restaurant this was going to be. I mean, there is anything and everything in Itaewon.

YunJin (her bf works at the restaurant) and HyunJeong

Nik and me

We were having trouble deciding on what to order on the menu... So, one of the waiters came over and said they would chose for us and bring us out some things. Okay, sounds like a plan, right?
That is how we ended up with a 9 course meal!!! Plus, a dessert platter. Dang.

Luckily, we shared each course 4 ways. I definitely tried some foods I would not normally eat. The owner of the restaurant is Japanese, and I think his wife is Korean. So, the food is kind of a fusion of Japanese, Korean, and Europeans flavors. We even had chipotle in something! So, I guess Mexican too!

Course 1

bunch of different types of fish and sushi

Course 2

pretty sure those are crayfish (with mango chutney)...

- I saw them for sale a few days later at a fish market

Course 3

glazed duck and potatoes

Course 4

sausage, potatoes, and wine soaked apples

Course 5

tart and grapefruit/orange salad

Course 6

Pesto risotto with prosciutto

Course 7

Oops... forgot to take a picture before we started eating... Spaghetti with duck sausage and pulled duck

Course 8

steak and caviar. what else is there to say?

Course 9

Salmon: very reminiscent of my Bubby's salmon!! It was rubbed with dill and had cucumbers and sour cream as a bedding, which I think my mom and Bubby would really have appreciated.

We also got wine, San Pellegriono water, and dessert!!!! We tried to pay at the end, but they wouldn't accept any money!!! Yikes... I actually felt really bad because they gave us sooo much food!

Definitely the first, and probably last time (for at least a long while) I will eat like that. ^_^

Dessert Platter

HyunJeong~ ^^

YunJin's bf came out to say hi

After dinner, we rolled ourselves to the subway station and went home.

on the subway ride home

Easter Vacation

2011-05-15T18:24:00.001+09:00

Hi,

It's been sooo long since I last posted... I guess I'll post about what I did since my last post and work my way up to the present...

First off, I got my hair cut and permed. Emily came up to Seoul and we decided to be impulsive and go get our hair done. I wasn't so sure about my hair cut; it was much shorter than I had originally planned. However, after about a month, I've gotten used to it ^^

clever sign I saw in Itaewon

Emily and me at Kraze Burger

Nik and I went biking/skating near the Han River

the money matches my jacket!!!

can't see too well, but heres a picture of mine and Emily's new hairstyles~

Yes that is. Totally soju in a juice box. we got yelled at for taking this picture... hehe.

Anyhow, from April 22~24, we had Easter break. (Going to a Catholic school definitely has its perks, as other language schools such as Yonsei didn't have time off then ^^). Thursday, I went mountain hiking with my classmates and teacher. Friday, I decorated Nik's house because he was going to have a party for his Spanish students on Saturday. I've been telling him since I got here to put something on his walls so its not so bare. But he never got around to it, so I had got to have fun 'scrapbooking' his walls.
I also made matzah lasagna in honor of Passover!!! Even though I improvised, as I didn't have all the correct ingredients, it turned out surprisingly well!

final product

On Saturday, I went and met up with a bunch of Sup Ho people! I haven't seen much of camp people because I've been so busy with work... We met way down in southern Seoul and ate 감자탕 (potato stew) at one of the unni's husband's family's restaurant. It was really really good!!! We also went to a flea market and I got a jacket for W7,000 aka roughly $7!!! Nice!! It was really windy that day and I was feeling really cold and happened to stumble upon the most perfect jacket! hehe.

So, on Thursday, I went with my classmates and our teacher to 남한산 (NamHan Mountain) to go mountain climbing. (Koreans LOVE hiking in the mountains).
The mountain was about an hour away by subway, so we met midmorning in Sinchon and went together.

One of my classmates had gone there before and suggested we go. When we got there, we just started walking and took the first path we saw, which ended up being quite difficult. My classmate had taken an easy course the time before, but our course was rather steep...
Our first stop was to go see the temple, which honestly, wasn't very far from where we had started. All of my classmates and our teacher are under the age of 34, but man, did we struggle... It was really funny, because on the way to the temple, we passed this ajusshi (old man) walking down the opposite direction. One of my classmates asked him how much further until the temple. He said not far, and then offered to turn around and take us up there. My classmate declined but said, "wow, what's wrong with this picture? A 100 year old man just offered to turn around and go up again and we can barely even make it up to begin with..." Lol!

walk up the mountain to the temple

struggling... almost there!

the most beautiful cherry tree ever!!! I actually thought it was fake it was so perfect looking...

lanterns~

haha~ oh Korea. Huge TV next to the bell. nice.

Anyhow, we did make it up there. And from there, we decided to go to the top of the mountain. Mostly because we planned to eat lunch together, but all of the restaurants are at the top~ lol. So, we started back up, and maybe about 5 minutes in, lost half our class. They were way down still trying to get up. So, our teacher asked an ajusshi passing by how long it might take us to get to the top of the mountain from where we were. He said it takes him about 15 minutes, so it would take us probably about an hour or so. Ouch! These middle aged men and women are VERY fit...

almost to the midway point~

half way there!

whew.

ajuma hulahooping like its a piece of cake

Ryu trying to hulahoop (note the ajuma in the background - dang, she was a pro!)

We almost turned around, but then people decided they could make it. And he was right, it took us about another hour to get there... It was really funny Japanese people don't really hike mountains, so most of them were dying. And we have one really funny Japanese guy in our class; he's the class clown. He came up to our teacher and, while panting, was like, "You said this was going to be like a stroll in the park!?... This is NOT a stroll in the park" and our teacher was like, "huh? What?? I don't remember every saying such a thing. But... Maybe when we get to the top of the mountain, I'll remember." haha!

we made it to the top!!!

Anyhow, we did make it to the top and had an amazing lunch~ 오리 구이 aka grilled duck. My favorite!!! It was definitely worth the effort.

L: Ryu from Japan, Dunkin from Australia, me

L: Amy (canada), Ryoko (Japan), our teacher!!! 구은미 샘, Nina (Taiwan)

yum!

everyone~

Amy and Ryoko

During break, I also went to 여의도공원 Yeoido Park to see the cherry blossoms; once with Nik and once with my host sister. Nik and I both had work, so we went late and the other time, I went with my host sister in the evening around dusk. Even so, the trees were really pretty! I was surprised my pictures turned out! ^^

Obama in Korea...

Nik in a tree. He got lots of stares~ I guess people don't climb trees here?... hehe.

gigantic ornate pieces of candy for sale

awesome cotton candy stand on the back of a motor bike!!!

oh yes. street food!

host sister Seunghee and me~

Grad School Admission = Costco Celebration

2011-04-14T00:10:00.000+09:00

Hello again,

I found out yesterday that I got into my first choice graduate school, Gallaudet University, with a 50% tuition scholarship!!!! yay!!!

I've been waiting weeks for a reply, so I was super happy and honestly, relieved to know the outcome. The scholarship came as quite a nice surprise.

I couldn't really celebrate though, because I had my midterm interview the next day (today).

So, I had my interview with my classmate Chika. It went alright; our dialogues were supposed to last 3-5 minutes each. But, we finished our three dialogues in just under 6 minutes... So, our teacher had us talk about our upcoming weekend. hehe.

Afterwards, Chika and I went out for a nice lunch to celebrate being done/me celebrating my getting into graduate school. The weather was absolutely perfect!!! The cherry blossom trees are starting to bloom, but aren't quite in full swing yet... In any case, after our exam, we walked around Sogang campus and took a few pictures. And then we headed to Jenny's Cafe in Hongdae.

After some wander (or a lot of wandering) we found it, and had a nice Italian lunch with a glass of wine.

It was funny because of our dialogues that we had written was about Chika drinking a glass of wine before giving a presentation for our class. We actually kind of got the idea of drinking wine after our exam from our dialogue... lol!

I really like Hongdae~ Honestly, I've not spent much time there. Lots of foreigners like to go clubbing there, but I've mostly spent time in Sinchon (where Yonsei University is) and Edae (where Ewah University is). Hongdae also has a university, Hongik University. Anyhow, there are some really great cafes and restaurants there. It's also known for being the "artsy" area~ Saw some cool graffiti and other such things. While we were searching for our restaurant, I saw at least three models posing in various areas - hongdae is very hip/quaint.

~love~

makoli bottles~

I found a Chevy bike!!!!

I went to my volunteering at the deaf school and taught my students. They seemed to really have picked up on spelling swear words in English. Honestly, my initial response thought was wow, I'm impressed that they know how to spell those words, second though: hilarious!!!!!, third though: hm.. and inappropriate.... Anyhow, today they wanted to learn how to sign KILL and KILLER. Oh middle school boys...

This evening, Nik and I made an epic trip to Costco. We had planned to go to the Seoul Women's International Film Festival and see a movie as well, but we seriously ran out of time... So it goes.
Costco was loads of fun anyhow.

Nik and I were pretty hungry, so we decided to eat dinner first. Oh, yes. Costco dinner. Nik, being a boy, order us a lot of food. Two slices of pizza, a bulgogi bake, and a smoothie. The place was packed, and the only chairs we could find were sandwiched between two couples... We literally had to climb over them to get in. They were not pleased. And, our speaking English probably did not help... haha!
I think we completely embraced the "loud, annoying American" stereotype tonight.

dinner

that my friends is a "bulgogi bake"

We used our hand sanitizer and ate. To put it nicely, Koreans are a lot less lax about washing hands... My Japanese classmates once commented on how American's are always washing there hands or using hand sanitizer. Well, germs are scary!!! haha.

Here are Nik's steps on how to eat like an American at a Korean Costco:

apply hand sanitizer

lather

cut

stab with fork

eat

Nik is having a dinner party next weekend for his Spanish students, so we went in search of needed items. Of course, we got really side tracked... I had come in search of one thing: jelly beans (for my students). I came out with a huge tube of Jelly Bellys and a carton of yogurt. Man, those jelly beans are EXPENSIVE!!!! I was in this huge quandry, but they were the only jelly beans available, and I really really wanted to give my students jelly beans for an Easter treat. So I sucked it up and spent, can you guess??? Roughly $23... Ouch. yeah, holy crap. that's how much I love my students...

그때 가격 너무 비싸서 고민이였다.

I had to do some serious thinking before purchasing these jelly beans...

Anyhow, Nik and I are not the most efficient people... But, we got most of the stuff and then some.
Here are some bizzar/creepy things we found at Costco:

flaxseed powder just for you mom!!!

and canned beans, just for you dad!!!

gross huge octopus!!! yum yum... it was almost $30!!!

creepy sideways fish...

soon to end up on someone's dinner table, or breakfast table for that matter

huge tins of gojujang, red pepper paste, the staple of Korean food

huge bottles of wine?...

our cart

Thus ends our epic Costco adventure.

*We have no shame. Nik asked a worker to take our picture, but she wouldn't. So, we set it on a self time, leaned my camera on a railing and took it that way.

Spring has Sprung and Happy Birthday Pop!!!

2011-04-12T00:39:00.000+09:00

Hello!

First off, happy (belated) 95th birthday to my grandpa Pop, my most dedicated and avid reader!!!!!!!

Also, hats off to my Bubby for working really hard at therapy and getting better every day!!!!! ^^

So, it's already 11:30 pm... So I probably can't write much, but I've been meaning to write an update.

I feel like I'm always in the middle of tests! And here I am, yet again, studying and getting ready for my midterm interview exam on this wednesday. I took our two written exams last week on Monday and Tuesday. I got back my writing and reading tests; my scores were fine. Pretty on par with what I thought they'd be. I'll get my speaking scores back on Wednesday, after my interview.

It's called an interview, but really, its memorizing dialogues... My partner and I had to write 10 dialogues and now I'm trying to memorize them. When we take our test, there will be 10 cards, and we will draw 5 of them. From those 5 we pick 3, and do the dialogues that correspond with the grammar points.

My interview partner, Chika is from Japan, and is an AMAZING cook!!!! We met on Saturday to practice and she made the most amazing lunch (and she thought it wasn't very good!!). What?! It was awesome.

salad and bosam (thick bacon aka pork belly)

(I don't know the name, but the white stuff is made from potatoes)

PASTA!!!

me and Chika

After studying, I met up with Nik and we went to the Vagina Monologues (click on the link for a description of what the Vagina Monologues is all about). I've been meaning to see this show for quite some time, and was pretty impressed with the production.

According the the Vday website:

V-Day is a global activist movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sex slavery. [...]

In 2010, over 5,400 V-Day benefit events took place produced by volunteer activists in the U.S. and around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women and girls.

So, there are Vagina Monologue productions held all over the world and I think 100% of the proceeds are supposed to go to help an organization/beneficiary. The beneficiary of our show was KUMFA, Korean Unwed Mothers & Families Association.

We saw a bilingual production, so some of the monologues were in Korean with English subtitles behind, some were in English with Korean subtitles on the screen behind, and a few were done by two actors in both English and Korean.

To put it simply, there was definitely a Korean twist to the show, which I both appreciated and found very intriguing.

Some of the pieces were very moving, especially the one about Haiti and the one about the comfort women, and some were just hilarious. They chose a good mix of monologues.

There were a number of Fulbright people who went as well. Afterwards, we headed to Hongdae for chicken and beer.

Nik and Sung

Anyhow, last week, I went to Nik's house and made parmesan chicken. Honestly, I was kind of impressed it turned out, considering I winged it and made the whole thing up. Not too hard though, if you think about it. Bread the chicken. Saute it. I also made baked broccoli! I was so happy to be able to cook!!! There is a serious lack of ovens in this country.

note the MN map!!!

We definitely watched "Big Bird Goes To Japan" on youtube (6 parts!) because we are awesome. My question is, why is there no Big Bird Goes to Korea!?

See how changoos (the drum) can be used in so many ways if one is resourceful!

Also, last week I met up with Steve Wunrow, Bill Drucker and Mary Lee Vance, (all associated with Korean Quarterly) who all came to Korea.

Nik and I went to PAN, Kim Duk Soo's samulnori show with them and then out to lunch in Insadong.

The show was pretty awesome!!! We ate at this weird vegetarian/vegan restaurant. There was definitely a HUGE portrait of the Supreme Master watching us eat the entire time. haha!

I also met up with Steve and Bill one more time to go to this North Korean fashion show, My Fashionshow, put on by Dirk Fleischmann, a German fashion designer. It was... interesting?.. He was showcasing clothes made in Kaesong, North Korea.

It started out with a magician. I haven't seen a magic show in forever, so that was pretty fun! The lead into the "fashion show" was the magician pulling a North Korean made shirt out of his hat.

magician, complete with purple hair

the shirt that was pulled out of the hat

model

Perhaps I missed the main point of the show... That could very well be. But my take on it, was this guy went to N. Korea, toured the factories. Got a bunch of black and white cotton shirts. Sewed his label inside them and is now selling them at astronomical prices... I feel like I must have missed something because that doesn't seem right...

shirts for sale... like $200!!!

people who read nonstop through the entire performances (1000 articles) about Kaesong and its clothing factories

after the article was read, it was discarded on the ground - performance art.

North Korean beer for sale

making SoMek (Soju and beer) with N. Korean beer and N. Korean 인삼주 Gingsang liquor

Steve and Bill

Anyhow, after the show, we went to Kraze Burger, which has the best hamburgers in the world!!! Yum.

Well, I should go to bed because its nearly 12:30 am now... More later!!!

Til next time!

-Lia

Spring has come, maybe...

2011-03-20T00:58:00.000+09:00

Hi!

Sorry for such a delay in posts... As usual, things are quite busy. Lets see... What has happened since my last post?... A lot.

I'm actually referring to my agenda to see what has happened between then and now.
*Warning, this is going to be a long post~

Okay, well first. I finished up level 3 Korean. My exams went better than expected, but were pretty stressful. whew. I really really liked my level 3 classmates, so I was sad when the semester ended.

at the graduation ceremony

our teacher on the phone

our class - minus a few people...

funny picture, right?

with our reading/listening teacher

We had a party at Hajir's house, the night after our final which was lots of fun~

with our COSTCO pizza - yes, Korea has Costco

Roxie, Hajir's adorable huskie

I had dinner with some of my former Korean classmates and former Korean teacher from my study abroad time at Yonsei University. I hadn't seen my language teacher in 3 years!!! It was really fun to catch up with everyone. Unfortunately, not all of us who are in Korea could make it that time, so will have to try again. (There are a surprising number of us back in Korea). We had Baskin Robins fondue, which was really tasty!!!

Gillian, Emily, our teacher and me

soooo good!

Soyeon, Sarang's sister was in Korea to visit her family, so I spent some time at their house, which is always fun!!! Soyeon and I went to this really nice park/palace with her aunt, cousin, and uncle too and took lots of pictures~ ^^ Her parents also took us to a really nice restaurant! yum~

cute ducks!

I like the modern and the old all together in this picture

amazing.

Soyeon and her mom

me and her dad

Oh, I took the ASLPI (American Sign Language Proficiency Interview) exam on Feb. 28th. (For those of you who know the TOFEL or TOIK exams, its the ASL equivalent) I was really nervous for that, as I needed a certain minimum score for admittance into two of the graduate school programs I am applying for. And honestly, I was really worried because after that ski trip, my ASL got kind of all mixed up. Since I was around all KSL users, I was kind of mixing the two languages together. And I totally want to learn KSL, but after I got back from the ski trip, I made a conscious decision to not hangout with anyone who uses KSL until after my exam... haha. Mixing the two during my interview would have been terrible; possibly a huge disaster, as the Korean sign for "correct" which looks exactly the same as the ASL sign for b*?!. hahaha~ I had this huge fear I was going to accidentally sign "correct/right" in KSL instead of ASL, but thankfully, I did not.
Anyhow, the test was a bit difficult to set up since I'm in Korea and there was a 14 hour time difference. Plus, I needed to have to right software/equipment in order to take the test. Luckily, one of my friends here had a video phone and was kind enough to A. let me use go to his apt. and use it, and B. be my proctor for the exam. So, my exam was at 10 pm Korea time aka 8 am EST. The interviewer was at Gallaudet University in Washington DC and my test was conducted over the internet via video phone (essentially like video skype). It only lasted about 20 min. and I was surprised to get my test scores back by the end of the week!!! (On line it said it would take 2-3 weeks). My scores was a 3.1, higher than what was required for entrance. Yes!

I also finished up the last of my application requirements for Gallaudets application, a video of myself in ASL introducing my self, educational background, and educational philosophy, and my goals statement sent off. Whew.

March 1st was a national holiday, so no school or work! woot! I met up with my level 3 classmates for lunch at Mr. Pizza. It was kind of a going away party for Kyoko and Ayumi, who were both going to be going back to Japan soon. Afterwards, I went to COEX mall and met up with Nathan, Hyunjeong, and Nik and we went to the aquarium. The line into the aquarium was RIDICULOUS!!! It was like a mile long.... Everyone and their mother was there, literally. But it actually moved pretty fast. Although the exhibits were super crowded too... Even so, it was fun.

there was totally squash on our pizza~ awesome.

March 3rd, Korean classes resumed and the new semester started. 4급 is significantly more difficult than 3급 in my opinion... there is a lot of reading, and unfortunately for the English speaking, or actually, the non-Japanese speaking students, our grammar book is lacking... But, I got my old teacher from 2급 who is awesome!!! I was so excited!! I love her teaching style; she makes class really fun~ ^^

That weekend, March 4-6th, I went skiing again. The last time for the season, as the weather is warming up. I went with Hyunjoo unni again. There was one other person from the other ski trip along with one of her other friends. We went to High One ski resort, which I think is the largest ski resort in Korea. It was really fun and the weather was awesome. Because we all had work, we met at Suwon Stn. and drove from there together. We got in late on Friday, skiied on Saturday, and headed back on Sunday.
It was almost too warm. I packed warm clothes and I was frying in them...

the view was amazing~

in our condo

haha~ he fell asleep

On the way back to Seoul on Sunday we made a few detours to do some sightseeing, which was really fun! We went to some famous restaurant that is known for their eel and smoked duck. I'd never eaten eel before, but it was sooo delicious! I kind of freaked out though, because when they put it on the grill, the tails started moving!!! ah!!! I literally jumped back and hit the wall behind me.
Koreans find it very amusing how queasy Americans (or maybe its just me) get when they see their food moving, somehow still looking alive. I'm getting better with it; I can eat whole fish with their heads, eyes, skin, and tails etc. and it doesn't bother me anymore; well for the most part. But I'm still working on it with other foods. lol~
We also went to Donghae, the East Sea, that separates Korea from Japan. It was really nice!!! wow. And the weather was absolutely perfect.

eel for lunch

at Dong Hae, the East Sea

One of my best friends from 3급 was going back to Japan the following week (actually, the day of the earthquake and tsunami... thankful she was okay and her town is in the south), so on Wedesday we met up in Apgujang for dinner. Afterwards we headed over to Gangnam and went to a bar, where one of our other classmates met up with us. It was really nice to hangout all together one last time.

Hitomi, Muxiang, and Kyoko

Andy, me, Kyoko, Hajir, Alexandra, and Hitomi

On Friday, Nik, Henrikje (a Swiss korean drummer I met during that international drumming festival I partook in back in 2008) and I went to a drumming performance by 노름 마치 Noreum Machi, this really awesome poongmul group. I had been incontact with the manager of the group for sometime, but hadn't managed to meet up yet. So she invited us and gave us free tickets to the show! It was such an amazing performance!!!

On Saturday I went biking with my host sister by the HanGang River. The weather was great, and you can rent bikes for aprox. $3/hr. Nice!!! Later, I met up with Hangsun oppa, one of the guys who I'd gone skiing with. He lives in Busan, but had come into Seoul for the weekend. We went to dinner and then watched the movie, "Rango." Good movie, by the way.

This past Wednesday, I met up with Dewi and Ryoma, two of my Korean classmates from my study abroad time. Ryoma was in Korea from Japan for a two week vacation, so we met up for dinner. It was really fun seeing him again! And even though Dewi lives in Korea, we don't get to see each other too often either~

Dewi, Ryoma, and me

On Thursday evening, after teaching, I went to Sogang University's sign language club. I want to learn some KSL and I found this club and thought I'd give it a shot. It was really fun! I totally don't have time for it, but I'm going to try and make it work... hehe.

Anyhow, I took on a tutoring job as well... It's one of my friends older sisters and she is really nice. We met for the first time yesterday to figure out logistics. After that meeting, Nik and I hungout and watched "Modern Family." It's hilarious and is pure 100% American humor. I LOVE it.

Oh, also, I found out I got into one of the grad. schools I applied for, McDaniel College in MD!!! I am still waiting on one school, but am so relieved to know I have a future!!! haha.

I had to add this picture, only because I find it hilarious. Its garbage "art" in Myeongdong, one of the biggest shopping areas.

Oh Korea... No comment.

Anyhow, thats all for now. Sorry this post was so long~ If you've read til here, thanks!

Also, I'd like to tell my Bubby to get better soon!!! If you read this Bubby, know that I'm thinking of you and I love you ^^

Skiing

2011-02-24T09:25:00.001+09:00

I went on a ski trip two weekends ago from Feb. 11-13 at Phoenix Resort in Pyeongchang. A while back, Hyunjoo unni invited me to go with the deaf ski and snowboard club. I really really like skiing and figure I ought to take the opportunity to ski on real mountains (as opposed to Minnesota's trash heaps...) whenever possible, so I jumped at the opportunity~ Unfortunately, it was the weekend before my Korean language exams, but as you saw in the previous post, it all turned out okay.

Anyhow, I was to meet Hyunjoo unni was down on CheonAhn Station (천안역) on line number 1. It took me more than 2 hours to get there!!! I had no idea it was that far! lol. Its waaaaay south on the dark blue line number one, near the end of the line. From there, I met Joo unni and two other people, and we took a rental car and drove another few hours to get to the resort. In total, there were 30 people gathering, and they trickled in from all over Korea through ought the evening and night.

Everyone except me and one other guy were deaf and they were all using Korean Sign Language. Wow~ a bit overwhelming, as I knew like next to none... Luckily Joo unni was there and interpreted for me. ^^
But people were super nice! Some people knew some American sign language, and we used lots of gestures. I also learned some KSL; basic stuff considering I arrived only knowing the alphabet and a few extraneous signs.
I had a really awesome time and met lots of cool people.

Korea has heated flooring and because there were 30 people in the condo the temperature skyrocketed!!! It got up to 40 deg. Celsius, which is 104 deg. Fahrenheit!!! sick... I was soooo hot! I didn't sleep at all our first night. Me and some of the girls in my room got up and went to sit in the hall for a bit it was so hot... We had to wake up at 6:30 am anyhow... I was really worried I was going to be mega tired for skiing, but I was actually completely fine and didn't even go to sleep until 2:30 am the next night.
We had breakfast, got our stuff ready, and headed out.

Hyunjoo unni and me

one of the organizers briefing us before we headed out~

I opted for the all day lift ticket, so I could ski morning and afternoon. In the morning I went out with two girls who were riding snowboards. I realized how cumbersome snowboards are unless you're really skilled. I had fun hanging out with them so it was fine, but I can't tell you how looooong I waited at the bottom of the hill each time. It was like stop-go with them as well as most of the other snowboarders on the hill. The hills were literally littered with snowboarders sitting on the slope fixing their binding etc.

snowboarders... ><

on our way to the slopes

on top of the mountain!!!

The weather was pretty perfect. Nice mild temps and later in the day we got lots of snow, which looked really pretty! (This was right before the huge snow storm hit Korea).
Korea is awesome because you can rent just about anything here. I rented ski pants, jacket, and googles for under $25!
[side tangent: Like everything else in Korea, skiing/boarding is totally all about appearance and presentation!! People spend a pretty penny to rent some really nice clothes and equipment! Dang.. People get all decked out, and look super professional until they start going down the hill... lol~ but it does make the hill much more colorful]

waiting inline for the gondola

riding the gondola~

on top of the mountain

look at all the snow!!!

Anyhow, after lunch, I went back out again. This time, I skied with some of the guys, who's skills were much higher. That was awesome! Some of the had brought video cameras, so we made movies of ourselves going down the hill one by one in a train etc. I also got to ski with Joo unni a bit which was fun! Ohhh! And I got to ride the gondola!!! So cool! I've ridden in cable cars before but not for skiing. I really liked how high up it went!

Anyhow, Saturday evening, after skiing, we went back to the condo and played games. We were split up into 4 teams, and played a variety of fun games! In my opinion, Koreans are very good at coming up with and participating in group games.
I did the pepero contest (pepero is like a long pretzel covered in chocolate), where a girl and a guy have to eat a pepero stick from opposite ends and each team tries to get the smallest amount left, and the soju game, where all the cups but one are filled with water. The audience has to watch our faces and guess who had the cup of real alcohol.

The losing teams had to prepare dinner. Guess what we ate?... You got it. Samgyupsal and alcohol. This was kind of like the MT I never had. Since on our MT with Tte (drumming club I joined while studying abroad) I missed all the fun and games and arrived for all the serious name choosing ceremony.
There was lots and lots of meat, and lots and lots of alcohol~ haha.

getting dinner ready~

poor guy... hehe.

먹자!!! lets eat!

ice cream!!!

see how ice cream makes everyone happy?~

It was really fun; just ate and chatted. Someone also brought Baskin Robins ice cream, which was gone in like 3 seconds. By then, I had picked up enough KSL and people knew enough ASL for me to have a conversation without Joo unni interpreting everything. Easy stuff, and given everyone had had something to drink... haha! (Really great, but after I got home, I realized that mixing ASL and KSL for 3 days straight was not the best idea... because I am to take my ASLPI (American Sign Language Proficiency Interview) this coming Monday and now I'm kind of confused on what signs are what language...AND the sign for correct in KSL looks the same as a bad word in ASL... watch me royally mess up in my test and sign that and have my interview freak out... Oh no!)

항선 오빠 making kimchi fried rice with the leftovers

Anyhow, we ate ramen for breakfast the next morning, packed up, cleaned and everyone headed back to their respective cities. I took the bus with a few other people back to Sinchon, the area in Seoul that I live in, and we were back by 12 or 1 in the afternoon.
Then I hit the books hardcore for my Korean final. ^^

Final Exams... whew.

2011-02-22T01:02:00.000+09:00

Hiya~

Sorry for the long lapse in posts... The past few weeks have been pretty busy. I had my final exams for Korean last week and I have my final interview tomorrow morning. Wish me luck... If I don't pass my exam, I can't go on to the next level...

I know that I didn't ace my tests, but I think I passed~ We shall see. There was an entire page on my reading exam that I had no idea what to write. lol~ ugh.
I can't wait until this is all over!

Then I can focus on the rest of my graduate school applications and get ready to take the ASLPI (american sign language proficiency interview) test. ugh. test after test. But once that is out of the way, I think things will ease up a bit. Or so I hope~ ^^

Some of my students are making movies in English, which I am hoping will turn out well. The first class I decided to try this with made their own story. I did this a few summers ago at work and had the students create their own story to film. However, I didn't take into account that these student's English proficiency isn't the greatest... They wrote a zombie story~ and got really into it, which is great, but that means that after I left work, they wrote an entire story (2 pages long) in Korean. So, of course it needed to be translated, as I teach English class... Well, my Korean is definitely not good enough to do that, so Nik, being super nice translated it for me ^^ Thanks Nik!!!

So, when I decided to do it at another school, I decided to have them do Korean folktales because they all know them and it does not need explaining. This has gone much much smoother so far. The older kids, there are only 2 of them, are making a music video to the song Sorry Sorry by Super Junior. I showed these kids a few videos from Sup Ho, which they really enjoyed. They thought it was really neat to see American kids who are learning Korea, making movies. It's the same as them, but with English so I think it boosted their confidence a little to see that other kids had successfully made a movie~

making props for kongjwi patwi movie

zombie movie

I went skiing last week, but I'll save that for another post~ I spent this weekend at Soyeon's house! She came to Korea for a short visit, and it was really nice to see her and her family! The weather has started to warm up a bit, so we went to Changdeokgung Palace 창덕구 with her aunt, uncle, and cousin and walked around and took pictures! It was really fun and a nice relaxing way to spend the afternoon~ It was nice to decompress after studying all week for finals (although I still have one more exam to go...).
(*btw, I had my interview and did a lot better than I expect and was surprisingly pleased with my grades ^^)

Soyeon, her aunt, uncle, and cousin

Soyeon and me

Soyeon in the arboretum

cute ducks

Temple Stay

2011-02-05T21:07:00.002+09:00

*video of our temple stay (click here) or go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgmOjnA4aak&feature=youtu.be

Last weekend I went on a Temple Stay tour. A week before, there was a flyer in my Korean class that was passed around advertising a temple stay tour free for foreigners. I am a HUGE sucker for free things, so I and a few of my classmates signed up. It turned out there was limited space, so by some stroke of luck me and one other classmates (from Malaysia) got to go.

(fam tour means free apparently...)

We left from the Hana Tour office early Saturday morning at 7. The only person I knew on the tour was my classmate, Edwin. There were other students from Sogang's Korean Language School, but as we are in different classes and different levels, I hadn't met any of them. There were also Korean language students from Korea University and Konkuk University. In total, there were 19 foreigners and 10 Koreans, all staff, I think. For some reason, they had down on their list that I was from Russia?... lol! There were students from the US, Russia, Mongolia, Japan, Malaysia, France, Sweden and China. The bus ride was about 2 hours to the temple, but we made a few stops along the way to see other sites.

We first stopped at ChoJung, which is famous for its natural sparking water. We all tried some straight out of the fountain and wandered around a bit. Then we had lunch - they served us bulgogi (korean style bbq beef) because once at the temple, there would be no more meat. After lunch we made one more stop at some famous bakery that was featured in a Korean drama "Bread, Love, and Dreams" (제빵왕 김탁구). I'd never heard of it before, but... it was cool anyhow. The town is full of handpainted murals, which was fun to see ^^

my classmate, Edwin

After the bread shop, we headed to the Sudeoksa Temple (수덕사) near the town of Yaesan. We got there, checked in and received a set of clothes to put on. Since it was cold, most people kept their normal clothes on and wore the temple stays overtop.

entrance to the temple

A woman gave us a tour of the temple and explained the basics. We also met the monk that was going to be with us on and off for our two day stay. He was really nice!!!
Since we were basically guinea pigs for Hana Tour, they had a video camera man and two others taking photos, almost constantly. It really wasn't too annoying though. And they posted them on facebook afterwards, so I got some sweet pictures out of it~
Almost all of the participants were Korean langague students but our levels ranged from 1-6. So, there was also an interpreter who interpreted most things into English.

There are three times that buddhist monks (all? I don't know, but at least Korean Buddhist monks) believe there should be absolutely no talking: eating/meal time, while in the bathroom, and while praying.
The monk (스님) taught us how to ring the dharma bell. This bell is struck 28 times in the morning and 33 times in the evening. There is also a big drum, a gong, and a large wooden fish that is played during this time by the monks as well. I was in the morning group, so I got to ring the bell 5 times at 3 am!!!

the bell I run at 3 am~

Our first evening, after dinner, we watched the monks play the drums, gong and wooden fish, and then those who were in the evening group went to hit the dharma bell and those who were in the morning group went straight into one of the temples for chanting and prayer.

Monk teaching us how to ring the bell

Afterwards, we did 108 prostrations, aka 108 bows and made our own prayer bead necklaces. So, for each bow we did, we were to add one bead. It was actually less difficult than I initially thought. I'd say only the last 10 bows or so seemed a bit taxing~ It was really cool to come out with a tangible object though!

We were supposed to have lights out around 9, when the monks do, but we were a bit behind schedule, so I think it was more like 9:30 or 10~ All the Sogang girls (7 in total) shared a room and the floor was so hot I couldn't fall asleep!!!... Koreans generally sleep on the floor and the heating system is all in the floor (called ondol).

Anyhow, getting up at 3 in the morning wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to bed. I was out ringing the bell by 3:15~ After the belling, we went and joined the others in the 703 year old temple for chanting and prayer (we just followed the actions and obviously did not participate in the chanting^^) The temple we were in was 703 years old!!! It was a really neat experience - the place was lit by candles and there were murals of buddha all around the room.

foreigners~

monks~

After the service ended and we went outside, we found that it had snowed about an inch or so and everything was covered in pristine untouched snow~ We then walked in a circle around a stone structure three times. The meaning or significance was lost to me... But it was cool to see the stars so clearly~

After chanting, we did meditation (that was probably around 4 am...) I couldn't tell if I was super super relaxed or half asleep... Here is a picture of the monk fixing my posture~ haha!

We had a traditional buddhist breakfast. The monks are strictly vegetarian and do not believe in wasting. We spent nearly an hour learning the steps to the meal before we actually served and ate. We each received 4 bowls stacked with a set of chopsticks and a spoon, grey linen cloth, and white towel. We weren't supposed to make any noise, so when taking your bowls out, you need to grab them by your thumbs and lift them out. Since you can't talk, when you have enough, instead of saying stop or something, you wiggle your bowl. In addition, the eating process includes cleaning your bowl with a radish, which you later eat and rinsing your bow and drinking the water!

cleaning my dishes after the meal

cleaning his bowl with the radish

not supposed to see your mouth when eating, so you stick your face into the bowl

I somehow got to sit right next the monk, which was a bit nerve racking... But the food was delicious! The monks clean their bowls so well, I don't know if they ever actually wash them. I doubt it.

Later, we got a chance to try some traditional style temple painting. I was really really impressed by how well everyones turned out. We ate roasted sweet potatoes for a snack and then had a wrap up session.

we put in a $10 donation and got a roof tile to decorate - they use these when the roof needs repairing

monk in front of the 703 year temple waving goodbye to us

On our way back to Seoul, we stopped at some spa, which is where one of the scenes from "Secret Garden" a really popular drama was filmed. Of course, I haven't seen it... But in any case it was cool. We went to the 목욕탕 aka public bath house aka no clothes. lol! It was really fun and relaxing though. There was a hot tub of "coffee water" and "green tea" water etc.

The weekend was a really cool experience. I feel I really got to stretch my mind a bit and got a completely new experience. During our stay at the temple, I really felt that all of what the monks did was with purpose. I think if I try to put more purpose into all of my actions and think before I do, I could be way more productive. ^^

Snow Snow Snow

2011-01-23T22:32:00.001+09:00

I went to see a movie with Jiyoon and Nik today and after the movie we walked outside into a winter wonderland. In two hours, we got enough snow to cover and turn everything white (which quickly turned grey...). We saw one girl totally wipe out in her stiletto heels and continue to slip as her boyfriend tried to help her up. Jiyoon said it was okay because she was with her boyfriend. hehe.
It snowed pretty hard for a few hours and then on and off the rest of the day. By the time I was heading home, around 9 pm, the roads were a mess. I was planning on taking the bus back home - there is only one bus that goes up the mountain where I live. I got on and the driver asked me where I was going and when I told him my apartment complex he said it was too slippery and he wasn't going there today...
He told me to take another bus that would take me close to home. I waited for a while, but then decided to suck it up and take a taxi. (I actually forgot my wallet at home today... So for a second I thought I was stuck. But taxis take transportation cards, and luckily I recharged mine yesterday). So I hailed a taxi and got in. He got about 20 ft. on the mountain and got stuck. He spent about 3 minutes tried very hard to get up the mountain, but to no avail. So, I had to get out and walk all the way up the mountain. Really slipper, but good exercise.
Good night~

The Tests Are Almost Over~ For Now...

2011-01-14T00:38:00.001+09:00

Hiya~

So, let's see... what's new. I hung out with Sarang and her cousin on Saturday. We went to Insadong and had lunch and then to another area near there with a bunch of really cute cafes~ We had a feast for lunch! Man, the restaurant was really expensive, except they had a lunch special, that included a ton of side dishes! It was really nice inside too~

kinda creepy looking, but tasty~

After lunch, we wandered around Insadong for a bit and then went to a chocolatier cafe and had hot chocolate. I ordered the hot cocoa with the most cocoa in it, I think 75% maybe... It was so bitter! I had to add a lot of sugar to it, but it was really good!

Nik came back to Korea on Sunday, so we had dinner together. I was supposed to be studying, but that didn't really happen... oops. But it was fun to see him and hear about his visit home and his adventures in LA, California~

I'm almost done with midterms. I had my writing exam on Monday, and my speaking/reading/listening exams on Tuesday~ I did okay. I was really annoyed with myself about my writing exam, because on the last page, I used the wrong grammar ending for the entire page, so I got -7... If I had used the correct ending, I would only have had -2 off... Ce la vie~ I did well on my listening exam and actually, I aced my reading exam. That was a surprise, because the listening exam was so fast, I didn't feel like I actually caught what was being said.
Next Wednesay, I have my speaking interview with the teacher, and then we'll get our speaking exams back~

classroom

some classmates during break time

Anyhow, after work on Tuesday I met up with an unni, I met through a friend. We went to dinner and then to a cafe. It was really fun, and nice to get a chance to practice speaking Korean~ I got home pretty late, but my host sister had gone out to and was picking up pizza for us to eat, since I finished my exams! so sweet!!! So, even though I had eaten, I ate again. I can eat sweet potato pizza anytime!

On Wednesday, I went straight from school to Aehwa to teach ASL. I had new students, so we just went over the basics. I swear one of the girls asked if I was pregnant... Maybe not, because she asked it in KSL to one of the teachers. But, I swear that's what she said... lol. I guess my sweatshirt was kind of bulky... um. But the kids are really great and very sweet. (and apparently, very honest ^^)

After volunteering, I headed over to Nik's. Even though our exams are over, we still had to make our videos of memorized dialogues from our book. Two classmates came over and we filmed at Nik's. After filming, we made dinner and hung out with was really fun! I taught my classmates, one from Japan and one from China how to say "drop it like it's hot." And today in class, they said it to the other American in class, who got a kick out of it~

Today, teaching went really well! I was very pleased and felt like the kids actually learned something. They seemed to have calmed down a bit, although this school has always been pretty good... Hopefully I don't jinx myself! Afterwork, I met Nik and we headed to Hyehwa to meet up with Sarang, Nathan, Hyeonjung, and Hyeonjung's friend, Meejoo for dinner. Sarang called while we were on our way and we figured out that we were riding the same subway! lol! It was rush hour so the crowds were terrible!!! The subway station was jam packed full of people! We had to transfer, and Sarang didn't think there was room for us, but we were already running late, so I said we should just go. So, we shoved our way onto the train and made it. Unfortunately, the door we needed to exit from was on the opposite side of the train... So, we literally shoved our way through a mass of people and made it out. Whew.

Met up with everyone and went to Korean BBQ and then to Baskin Robins for ice cream. It was really fun, linguistically confusing, for me any how...^^ Hyeongjung and her friend, Meejoo are Korean KSL interpreters, so they know Korean and KSL. Nathan knows ASL and KSL. Nik know Korean and English. Sarang knows Korean and English. I know English, ASL, and Korean (sort of..). So, for example, if Nathan was talking in ASL, I would translate it into English and then Sarang would translate the English into Korean. A very entertaining experience ^^
Oh, and on the way to the ice cream shop, I totally wiped out! I told Nik earlier, on our way to meet everyone that I was gonna wipe out sooner or later... The roads here are terrible!!!
[ I can't remember if I already wrote this in another post, but when I was in Myeongdong, I literally saw two city workers with a hammer and a chisel trying to hand chip all the ice that had formed. The roads were literally covered in sheer ice, from the snow that melted and refroze and also just because SOOO many people had already walked all over it and packed it down. ]
In any case, my shoes had no traction and we were going down a really steep hill and I totally wiped out. It was actually extremely hilarious. Sarang and I laughed and laughed. (actually, even now as I write this, I've started to crack up again...) So, since we were on a hill, aparently, I just kept rolling... If I recall correctly, I think Sarang told me that as I was rolling, I was laughing (I don't actually remember). And I had my backpack on, which is kind of blue. So, Sarang thought I looked like a blueberry rolling down the hill. So, after I stopped rolling, I tried to get up, but my bag was too heavy and I was on such a steep hill, I couldn't get up... So, I gave up and just lay there, until Sarang pulled me up. It was epic.

Anyhow, now I am finishing up editing our videos for class... I hope it doesn't take too long, because I want to go to bed...
Til later!

Christmas Jello, Pohang, and the New Year~

2011-01-08T00:42:00.001+09:00

Hi~

Well, its been quite a while.
First off, happy new year!!! It's 2011!!!

So, for xmas, I made my student's Jello~ Nik and Emily both told me it was a good thing to bring, so I brought a couple boxes from America with me. The night I was making it, my host mom and sister came out to see what I was up to and they were fascinated. So, I made them a box of Jello as well ^^

one of my student's grandma made these rice cakes~ the were amazing!

Anyhow, I had one week of vacation from Korean class, but worked everyday except for xmas day and one other day during that week.
On Xmas eve, I went to Namsan Tower with Nathan and his parents, who came to visit from Chicago. That was fun, as I haven't been there in over two years, but it was mad busy - full of couples, because Christmas in Korea is more of a couple's holiday.

random person looking out the window of Namsan

I had no particular plans for Christmas day. I was literally sitting in my room messing around on my computer, and skyped Emily, who was also not up to much in Pohang. And we had the ingenious idea that I go visit her (she was kind immobile due to her incident in the subway station where her body met an ajuma's elbow... and the rest is history). So, about 15 min. later, I was packed and out the door, headed to Seoul Station to catch a train to Pohang (actually to a city near by and from there a bus to Pohang).
I got in around 7 pm~ Emily's neighbor, who is an American teaching for EPIK was hosting an xmas party for a bunch of English teachers. So, we hungout there for a while and then went back to her apt. We went to great lengths to find a pizza place near her house, but we had success and ordered our traditional koguma (sweet potato) pizza. YES! Just like Yonsei days...

I spent three days there and headed back VERY early monday morning so I could get back in time to teach at 1... It was a great trip and most definitely worth it! And after teaching that day, I went straight to Sarang's grandpa's house for dinner and of course, got to see Sarang!!

the train station in the morning~

On Tuesday, I went to the art museum with Pil and saw the Chagall exhibit, which was amazing!! Afterwards, we went to an Indian restaurant and had delicious food.
There was also a bunch of really pretty xmas lights up around the city!
I can't imagine how much energy they consumed or how much that cost the city... But they were pretty...
There was also a display about the North Korean bombings in Yeongpeong~

On Thursday, my work place was having a winter camp for the students and decided to cancel my class that day, so instead of teaching, I got to go on a day trip down south with Sarang and her mom and grandma! We rode the train and then took a bus to get to the city of Taebaek, which is an old mining city, and I guess is known for its winter landscape~ We went through the museum, which was very well done and mainly about the town's coal mining history. And then we went SLEDDING!

On new years eve, I went to out with Lea, Rae, Nathan and a few other adoptees in Sinchon. It was really fun and we ended up at this weird bar full of crazy foreigners. The bar handed out sparklers to bring in the new year - I LOVE sparklers, so I was completely content. ^__^

I got up really early on Sunday morning to go skiing with a few people from camp. Pil came and picked me up at my apartment. Neither he nor I realized that there really isn't anywhere to turn around once you past through the gate... So, we spent a good 15 minutes just trying to back his car up the hill out of the road in front of my apartment. Actually, we were at it so long, the security guard came down and kind of pushed Pil out of his car and did it for him. Victoria, who was also in the car and I just sat there as he skillfully maneuvered the car up the narrow hill. Whew. If not for him, Pil's car would probably still be stuck there...
Anyhow, we made a pit stop in Itaewon for breakfast, aka, KFC... not the greatest... And then drove another 2 hours or so to PyeongCheong, (incidentally, where Emily taught English last year!) to the famous Dragon Valley Ski Resort. We met up with Eunji unni, who had come down separately with her family and got ready to go skiing!!!!!!!

this igloo was supposed to be a tribute to the Vancouver Olympics.. They also had teepees...

Pil, Victoria, and Eunji

These animal hats are very popular here and people wear them with all seriousness

ramen for dinner!

I was so excited, as I have never had the opportunity to go skiing on an actual mountain!!! Pil had rented a condo room, but unfortunately Eunji unni and I had class the next day, so we couldn't spend the night.
We definitely crammed A LOT into one day~ It was Victoria's first time trying skiing and she was fearless! On her first run, she just went (not a bunny hill either!). I turned around to give her a few tips and tell her to wait when I saw her glide by... Pil, Eunji and I stood there and watched her go down the hill and then saw her sit down and crash on purpose because she didn't know how to stop... haha! By the end of the day, she was pretty good!

Anyhow, on Monday, Korean classes started back up and I have midterms next week, so I should go study~

Happy new year!!!

New Home Stay and the hustle and bustle of Seoul

2010-12-23T12:44:00.001+09:00

Lets see...

So, I moved to my new home stay's house last Wed. so almost exactly a week ago. I'm living with a mother and her daughter (30 yrs old). They are extremely nice and friendly! I think it'll be a good living situation. The only slightly inconvenient thing, is they live on the top of this small mountain, and the only two ways to get down are to take a bus, that only comes every 20 minutes, or to take the stairs, all 210 of them. Going down isn't bad, but going up is a trek. whew. I've done it 3 times so far. Nik told me I should check my heart rate now and then again after a few months to see if I've improved. ^^
However, by bus, I can get to the Sinchon subway station in 5 min. flat, and then, all I have is about a 10 minute walk to get to class. So, in the mornings going to class is very easy.

My room is also really small! I mean, I know Korea doesn't have a lot of room to spare, but when I first saw it, I wasn't sure all of my stuff was going to fit.. but it actually turned out just fine, and now I look around it and it doesn't seem that small anymore. I guess I've gotten used to it ^^. I think Americans are just spacey greedy... haha.

With the help of Nik and Fulbright, I also got a volunteer opportunity set up at a deaf school in seoul to teach ASL to interested middle school students. I've had two classes so far, and I'm really enjoying it! I have two male students, and they are so sweet and are so enthusiastic! I think from next week on, I'll split my class into two parts, and continue teaching the boys for the first part, and younger middle school students the second part.

What else... I met up with one of the Tte members, whom I initially made friends with during study abroad. I can't believe that was 3 years ago!!! crazy... It was so great to see her again!
On Friday, two of my students got into a fist fight!!! I've never seen a fistfight before. Not at LdF or anywhere... I was shocked. It started out with name calling and teasing and then all of a sudden, one of them wound up and punched the other in the face. Then all hell broke loose. The main teacher came over and broke it up. But she mostly yelled at the kid who got punched, which I didn't understand why... I felt really bad for him too, because he'd started to cry and then the other kids started making fun of him because he was crying. Plus, he and his family are North Korean refugees, so the other kids were making fun of him for that too... omg.

Emily came in from Po-hang, where she is teaching English for the weekend. So, after (a very hectic) work on Friday, I met her at KoRoot and we spent the night there. Unfortunately, I came down with a cold... So, we hung low and caught up. On Saturday we went to Myeongdong and we each bought a fleece jacket at uniqlo. its so warm! Then, later, I met up with Nathan for dinner, and Em went to have dinner with her boyfriend. Nathan introduced me to some of his friends, which was fun. One of them is a KSL interpreter on the news, I think MBC and EBS. She also taught herself ASL! so jealous! She knows Korean, KSL, English, and ASL! wow.
On Sunday, I was supposed to meet Emily to say goodbye, as she was supposed to head back to Po-hang and then up with SupHo people in Gangnam for dinner. However, Emily got elbowed by an ajuma (middle aged woman) and was knocked down the subway stairs and severly sprained her ankle!!! Em and I concluded that that experience pretty much sums up Korea. Crazy ajuma knocks her down and doesn't even stop to help her or make sure she's okay, but another ajuma stopped and helped her to the station office.
To make a long story short, we spend the day finding ice, a bandage, and then the hospital. I think everyone thought we were insane too, because we keep laughing like mad. That's what happens when we hangout.. we get loopy have crazy escapades. Luckily, she is okay though. She spend a few more days in Seoul and then went back to Po-hang.

in the office at wangshimni subway station

at Hanyang University Hospital

So, on Monday after work, I went to Apgujung to Youngmi unni's house and met up with some SupHo staff. I was happy to make it to that gathering ^^ Eunji unni painted all of the girls nails! So pretty! Unfortnately, I'm very bad at keeping things pretty. In less than 24 hours, I'd kind of messed them up. I complained to Nik and he said, "haha. You're such a tomboy."

Pil, Yunjeong unni, Eunji unni, Minji, and Youngmi unni

Yesterday, after my volunteering, I met up with Jiyoon unni! She was mine and Susie's language partner in MN during the summer/fall. She was studying English at St. Thomas. Her younger sister also was there studying English, so after Jiyoon left to go back to Korea, I hung out with her sister~ It was so crazy seeing her in Korea instead of America! Her mom knit me a beautiful scarf!!! It is so pretty and warm and thick! I can't wait to use it!

Last night, after I got home, I made Jello for my student as a kind of Christmas present. So, I'll bring that today and then, afterwork, we are having our Holt (work) xmas party. It should be fun~

dialogue madness...

2010-12-19T14:30:00.000+09:00

Howdy~ ^___^

Wow, this past week was a bit hectic. The weather got a lot colder... ugh. It's cold in MN, but I have a car there and don't need to walk everywhere.

I met up with one of my co-workers and we studied Korea together, which was nice! She is from Denmark and is here teaching English on the same program as me. After studying, we met up with Nik for dinner and went to the Italian Plate. I love that place because the waiter is so hilarious! He loves meeting foreigners and can say thank you in a bunch of different languages. Here is a picture of Mette, Nik, the waiter, and I~

Mom sent me a mini menorah for Chanukkah. I didn't get it until the 6th night, but it was nice to have. Thanks mom! Here are pics of Nik and I lighting it on the 8th and final night.

lighting a match on Nik's stove

Plus, our Korean teacher assigned our class to memorize 6 dialogues and then film them with our partners.
On Friday, I went to a Fulbright forum on modern architecture in Seoul. Afterwards, Nik and I went to Seoul Station to accompany a friend to the train station. On the way back, we were studying my dialogues and we completely lost track of where we were. We missed our transfer stop and ended up way off from where we were heading... So, we got off and turned around. AND missed our transfer stop again... This is what happens when we are together. All the time. It never fails. We do this wherever we are; MN or Korea... ^^
So, we ended up spending about an hour riding the subway back and forth. On the plus side, by the time we parted ways, I had 5 out of 6 dialogues memorized!

On Saturday, I went to Joo's English class. Her class was an English class for deaf and hard of hearing Koreans. It was pretty cool. Afterwards, I went to lunch with her and two of her classmates. We ate budaechigae, which originated from the food the US soldiers used to give out. So, lots of random things end up in the soup, like spam and hotdogs. I found pepperoni in this version, which just weirded me out because pepperonis are supposed to be on pizza... haha.

Later, I met up with my friend Sarah from SupHo. She is here teaching English at a university down south. We hungout and then went to the G.O.A.L Christmas party, where I met up with Nik. I also ran into Lea and Rae and a few other people I knew. The party was okay, but they ran out of food. I was starving! So, Sarah, Nik, and I ended up leaving the party for a bit and we went to Kraze Burger for burgers and fries. haha. Eating burgers and fries in formal wear.
After the party, Nik and I went to a cafe and ended up watching an entire movie on his computer before heading home at around 3 am...

Sarah and I at the GOAL party

Kraze burger

chili fries

this restaurant has the best hamburgers ever

On Sunday Nik graciously allowed my classmates and I to videotape our dialogues at his apt. So, we met up at noon. It was actually very fun! We have a lot a lot of bloopers... hehe. I think our teacher might post them on youtube. If he does, I'll post a link.

Nik and my two classmates Hitomi (Japan) and Mika (Germany) eating Chinese delivery

At 4, I met up with this unni I met at the KoRoot Thanksgiving dinner. She is Korean, but her husband is an adoptee and serving in the US military, so they live on the military base. She invited me over. Man, the military base is crazy! It's just like America!!! I couldn't believe it!
As soon as you enter the gates (only authorized people are allowed in. I had to bring my foreigners reg. card and get my entrance approved) it is no longer Korea, but America. The buildings/structures look American. Even the fastfood joints and strip malls look American! I mean, the burger king looked just like the ones in MN. The BKs in Korea are much nicer and fancier, but this one just looked blah and ordinary. Weird.
Then, I headed back over to Nik's for dinner because his neighbor was having Dr. King over (the Dean of SupHo) and Nik and I got invited as well.

The next evening, I went back to Niks for dinner. We were going to do something simple and study Korean. Nik decided to make homemade fried chicken! I've never had homemade friend chicken and I was so impressed!!! But the chicken was done before some of the other stuff, so we stuck it in the oven to keep it warm. However, some of the oil dripped to the bottom of the oven and started to smoke like mad... We opened up all the windows, got out the fan, and wrapped the fire alarm with a cloth. whew. that was close. Even so, dinner was awesome. Although Nik's apartment reeked of fried chicken for a few days after the fact~ ^^

Mosquitoes... in December?!

2010-12-06T19:38:00.018+09:00

First off, I've seen two mosquitoes in the past week here! I saw the first one in the elevator of the Holt building, and I was positive I was imagining things. I was sure it was some other kind of bug that just looked like a mosquito because its December!!! But, when I told Nik he told me he had killed one just the other day at his apt. Then, while I was at his apt. studying, I saw another one. And it was HUGE! so I killed it.

Anyhow, this weekend was really fun. On Friday, after class I worked from 2-7 and then met up with Supho people for dinner. It was really fun ~ got to see a lot of people I haven't seen since camp! which ended in August. Plus, there were a few people who I hadn't seen in two years! I arrived late because I had work until 7. We ate shabu shabu (hot pot) for dinner and then went to Minto, a tea and coffee cafe. We got a huge room for our group and had drinks and cookies and ice cream. I actually didn't eat much of dinner; it goes in courses and since I got there late and the last course is rice with eggs... So, I ate ramen at the coffee shop ^^

On Saturday, I went with my friend Joo to a deaf musical. What is that, you may ask? I asked myself the very same question. It was a play all in KSL (Korean sign language) with voice interpretation. I don't know KSL (no, it isn't the same as ASL) and my Korean isn't great, but I got the gist. I mean, the story line wasn't too hard to follow, and after the show, Joo, her friend and I concluded it was basically the same storyline as "Step Up", the movie. haha! If you've not seen "Step Up," the story takes place in a high school in the 'bad kids' class. They don't care about school and just mess around all day and are on their 7th teacher of the year. This teacher comes in really wanting to connect with the kids, but fails, initially. However, after finding out about his students backgrounds and home life, he comes up with a plan to have them put on a musical and do a dance to build their confidence, and he succeeds. The last scene of the play was of the students and the teacher doing a choreographed dance to the song Champion, by Psy.

*photos courtesy of HyunJoo Chu

actors, director (woman) and some other important people... ^^

more important, not worthy people and the actors

Joo unni, her co-worker who played the teacher, and me~

Prof. from KSL interpreting program and ...?

at a cafe after the show

"Step Up" plot line or not, it was really good and I really enjoyed it. And afterwards, Joo introduced me to some of the people. The person who played the teacher is her coworker and I also met a professor at Nazarene University and works in the Korean Sign Language Interpretation Department. He knew ASL because he attended Gallaudet University in Wash. DC!

Later on, I met up with Nathan for dinner and after dinner we met up with Nik~ We went to some bar near Jamsil, which was surrounded by strip clubs... odd. The bar was really nice though.

Speaking of which, I was walking home from the subway station yesterday and there were all of these business cards with scantily clad women with phone numbers scattered on the ground. They've actually been there for a few days and initially I thought someone just accidentally dropped them, but I realized yesterday that they must have done it on purpose. Because it wasn't just in one concentrated area, but all down the sidewalk... I guess the person was too embarrassed to hand them out to people, so perhaps they thought if they just dropped them on the ground, interested people would pick one up?... Odd advertising tactic.

Then on Sunday, Nik and I met up to study... We ended up cooking a huge meal! I made latkes and he made spaghetti~ We also had green beans and salad and fruit. Yum!!!
And we totally procrastinated from studying for a good 6 hours... After preparing, cooking, eating, digesting, and going for a walk, we finally cracked down and studied some~ It was a good end to a fun weekend ^__^

*didn't have an actual camera, so we took these photos using photobooth on Nik's computer...

먹자!!!

teaching English, studying Korean etc.

2010-12-02T15:43:00.005+09:00

Hi~

This past week has been busy! Since I last wrote, I moved from Marks to the Holt guest house. I will move again (soon) to my home stay, which is apparently in Hongdae.

So, on Monday, Brownie, Sarang's former English student came and picked me up with his car and helped me move my things from Mark's place in Sinchon to Holt which is in Hapjeong.
Afterwards, we went to the World Cup stadium for lunch and then he took me to my work place. It was my first day!!!! but we were a bit early, so we just hung around and explored the area a bit. He let me drive his car which was fun! I never thought I'd drive in Korea, but the after school program where I teach (I actually have three different sites, but they are all near each other) is kind of a suburb of Korea, so it's much less crowded.

My first day of teaching was okay... Not the best, but not terrible. It was just really chaotic... The center is only one room, literally called a study room (공부방) so while I was trying to teach there were other kids and teachers doing other things. Plus, there was a large disparity between kids' English levels. Also age. I am supposed to teach the elementary kids first for an hour and then the middle school kids second. But some of the middle schoolers decided to join in the first hour and were rather disruptive until one boy actually made another boy cry and they were removed.
I had a lesson plan, but wasn't sure of their levels...
I didn't really have any resources/materials either. So, after I finished I went to Nik's (thanks Nik!) and he printed out phonics flash cards I had made last year. Whew. I spent a long while cutting and gluing but had them ready in time for class the next day.

My experience the next day was much better, partly because I had the flash cards etc. and also it was more of a classroom setting with just me and the kids I was teaching. There was some sort of national exam for all middle school students, so I only taught the elementary kids and then we took them out to play at the park for an hour~ nice.

I met up with Nik and Bill Drucker, a writer for KQ who is visiting Korea and we had dinner and ice cream together.

Yesterday, wednesday, is my "day off" when I don't teach. Class hadn't started yet, so I went to the immigration office and picked up my foreigner's registration card and passport. Yay! I finally have it.
Afterwards I met Bill at 11:30 and we went to go see the comfort women's demonstration in front of the Japanese embassy. This demonstration is held every Wednesday and if I understood correctly, I think the weekly demonstration has been going on for 20 years! The woman along with their supporters are there protesting the Japanese governments denial of what happened. They want recognition, an apology, and compensation. And they come rain or shine.

women lined up with supporters behind them~

guards standing across the street in front of the Japanese embassy

I had wanted to go during study abroad, but always had class at that time, so when Bill said he was going, I jumped at the opportunity. It was definitely a memorable experience. The former comfort woman were lined up in chairs hold a banner and behind them stood supporters. There were also speakers who took turns leading cheers or giving small speeches.
Unfortunately, my Korean is not good enough to catch everything, but it was very powerful.

Later, I met YunJeong unni at Ewha Univ. and she helped me reactivate my phone. Finally!!! yay!

Then, for dinner I met up with Nik's friend Nathan and his friend HyunJeong. Unfortunately, Nik was busy and couldn't come. Nathan is a deaf korean adoptee from the states (They met at a GOAL event) working in Korea for google! It was really fun to practice my ASL and his friend, HyunJeong, is a KSL interpreter, so I learned a bit of Korean sign language as well, which was really fun, but is completely different from ASL.

Today was my first day of Korean class. I think it will be good, but pretty intense. I was really surprised that my speaking and reading/listening teachers are male! I have never had a male teacher in Korea and I've heard its pretty uncommon. I definitely need to get into the habit of studying everyday again... Our speaking teacher seems a bit strict, but also really nice. He said if we speak even one word of English during class, he'll make us buy everyone coffee. Funny, but he means it. He also said we are not allowed to use our dictionaries in class! The entire class gasped, including myself... haha! and this one girl's mouth dropped open and stayed that way for a good 30 seconds or so. It was really funny.

Anyhow, I'm off to go teach English. This is my first day at the third site, so after today, I will have taught at all of my sites once.
Til later~

Thanksgiving and the likes

2010-11-28T22:40:00.003+09:00

So, this past weekend, I celebrated Thanksgiving~

I never thought I'd be eating a full-blown thanksgiving meal in the heart of Seoul. But I did.

But before I get there, I guess I'll talk about what else I did. On Friday I met with Rae in Itaewon to borrow her prepaid phone. Thank god... I want to reiterate how hard it is to live in Korea without a phone!... Now I have a working phone with which I can contact people and be contacted. Whew.
We hung out at a cafe for a bit and then I met up with Soonae unni, one of the counselors from Sup Sogui Hosu. We went to dinner and ate shabu shabu (hot pot) and then went shopping to find me a winter jacket. I brought one, but its not warm enough... We found one at a store in 이대 on sale!

Soonae unni and me~

On Saturday, I met up with Eunji unni, YunJeong unni, and Jinwha unni in Sinchon. It was really fun seeing them as I haven't seen anyone from camp since it ended in August. We ate 찜닭 (jjim tak - chicken, noodles, and veggies) and then went out for tea~

a bit blurry... Eunji, Yunjeong, and me

Then, later, Nik and I went to KoRoot for their annual Thanksgiving dinner and we ate turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, carrots, potato soup, salad etc. The only thing that was missing was my green bean casserole... I guess I'll have to wait on that.

Thanksgiving dinner plate~~

It was really funny. So, we took the bus from the subway station toward Koroot and ran into a bunch of other adoptees on their way there as well. I'd never ridden the bus that way before, so I wasn't sure where to get off. Nik knows, but he had a senior moment so we got off a stop too soon... I didn't realize until later, but some of the other people had followed us off the bus! Oops...

The dinner was a way to celebrate Thanksgiving and also raise money for the single mothers organization, Mama Mia. It was kind of funny though, because there were a lot of adoptees there, and of course, not all of them were American. I happened to sit next to two Danish Korean adoptees, both of whom were celebrating their first American Thanksgiving~

After dinner, Nik's had plans to go ice skating with one of his friend and I decided to tag along. Nik's friend is a member of a skating club and they rent out the Lotte ice rink once a month after hours. So, we headed across the city to Jamsil to Lotte World. Nik's friend, Min is an awesome skater. Nik met her through inline skating, but she also knows how to speed skate! wow. I borrowed Nik's hockey skates but they were too big... I did a few laps, but then just hung out and watched others. Some of the people were really good!
Afterwards, the club went out for 뒷풀이 (that term may be familiar~ it's what I did after drumming class/drumming performances) - basically go out for korean bbq and drinking to create a communal feeling, more bonding, and relaxation...

Lotte ice rink - so empty!!! normally there are 50 x that many people...

Wow! The guy next to me got sooooo red! I've never seen anyone get that red before. His face, neck, arms - all just beet red! And man was he loud!!!

It was fun. Nik, Min, and I shared a taxi back and I got home at 4. The only down side is when you leave, you smell like bbq meat... ugh.

Today I went to lunch with Mark and had Mexican. We went to South of the Boarder and I got the chimichanga I had wanted to get before I left s. I'd heard about it since freshman high school... out in search of some good children's books in English. I went to Kyobo bookstore because I've heard its the biggest and the best. However, it was extremely crowded! I should have realized Sunday was not an ideal time to go. Plus, all of their children's books in English come with a CD which I don't need and makes the books more expensive... So, I left and went to Bandi & Luni bookstore.
A very small selection and almost all with English recordings... I sucked it up and bought one, "Looks Like Spilled Milk." Awesome, right?
After the bookstore, I stopped by Dongdaemoon market to buy a nicer looking bag for work etc. I found one I liked, but the lady said it was W 80,000 ($80)!!! Way too expensive. The others were okay... I ended up haggling it down to about 50% off!!! I felt sooo good.

I went home after that. And had fried chicken for dinner. Now that I've had my fix of fried chicken, hopefully I'll be good for a while. It's sooo good in Korea though...
Now, I'm at a coffee shop with Mark. We came here to use the internet, but their wireless was messed up... so, we're now tethering internet from his iphone. Oh, it is also snowing outside... Pretty but cold.

Mark's apartment:

my stuff... it looks like it exploded out of my suitcases~

Well, tomorrow is my first day of work! Wish me luck.

pancakes and noodles-in-a-box

2010-11-24T11:12:00.002+09:00

Hi~

So, its my second day here~ Yesterday was fairly productive, until I fell asleep, that is.

Yesterday, midmorning I went to the immigration office. I forgot to ask Nik how to get to the subway station from his apt. before he left for work, but I wandered around and found one (not the closest one, but I found one). The immigration office was surprisingly uncrowded and I waited less than 5 minutes before I was called! That NEVER happens!!! I turned my paperwork in, in order to get my alien registration card, which I NEED to reactivate my cell phone and do banking stuff. I'll get my passport back along with my alien reg. card on the 30th. So, just a few more days of inconvenience without a cell phone. In a country where 4 year olds have their own phones, it's really hard to function here without a phone...

I met up with Nik and his coworker for lunch at a Chinese restaurant. After lunch I went back to Nik's. I had planned on going to the bank to check my balance on my debit card, but I never made it... I checked my email, worked on some grad. school apps, and then got a facebook message from someone asking if I was okay and how Korea was due to the bombing by North Korea! That was the first I had heard of it...

I wanted to watch the news, but I couldn't get Nik's tv to work. (Later, I found out I needed to plug the cable in... That explains why I couldn't get a simple tv with no more than four buttons to work...) So, I ended up reading the news online. Then I got really sleepy and decided to take a quick nap. Initially, I resisted because I generally don't take naps and get over jetlag fast. But, Nik and I had stayed up late the night before, so besides being jetlagged, I was running on little sleep.

Woke up and went out to find someplace to eat with Nik. We ended up meeting up with Mark and his girlfriend at "Noodle Box." They serve noodles in a box; a Chinese take-out box. It was really nice seeing Mark~ I'll be moving over to his place later today.

This morning, Nik and I made pancakes for breakfast!!! yum...

I have a meeting with Mrs. Seol, the program director of the Holt Homecoming program, which I have my teaching job though. It will be nice to finally meet her. Susie has talked her up quite a bit. Wish me luck!

One More Hurrah~ (In Korea)

2010-11-22T21:25:00.003+09:00

Hi~

I'm back in Seoul, Korea, yet again. This time, I have a job teaching English as well as taking Korean classes at Sogang University (same school as last spring).

It was rather treacherous trying to get to the airport during the wee hours of this morning (technically yesterday, I guess...). Minnesota had just the right temperature for a nasty slick coating of ice that covered the roads... So, we left at 5:30 am and it took Mom, Dad, and me an hour to get to the airport! And along a particularly harrowing stretch of road, we saw something like 15 spinouts/crashes/possibly people just waiting it out, on the side of the road. Jeez...

My parents thought I might have to go through one of those new airport scanners, but the ones at the gate at MSP weren't being used this morning, and later on, in Chicago they did every other person, and I was not chosen. That's fine by me - I had enough xrays last spring in Korea to last me a long while.

My flight from MSP took off over an hour late due to the weather conditions. They de-iced our plane, we taxied. Then stopped and waited. Then taxied. Then they told us all flights were grounded for the next 30-40 minutes... So of course, I called my mom. But as soon as I got off the phone with her, they said the grounding had been lifted and we took off about 15 min. after that. Whew.

Chicago was no problem. I didn't really have any spare time, but I made it to my gate fine. I even had time to stop in the duty-free store to buy my friend a bottle of Grey Goose he wanted me to bring over. ^^

The flight from Chicago to Korea went by fairly fast. I got through a 327 page book in under 5 hours. I don't know if that's fast or not, but I was pretty persistent. It wasn't that it was that good (it wasn't bad either), but I didn't feel like watching a lot of movies for some reason... I think last time I flew over, I watched movies straight though and ended up completing about 7 movies.
Also, last time I flew over, I met one of the most awesome unnis on the airplane~ Sadly, this time, I didn't make any new friends... hehe.

Anyhow, I got my bags pretty fast at baggage claim and walked out and saw a sign with my name on it;vI had been worried that I wouldn't find my ride. Holt had sent some ajusshi to take me to Nik's apt. where I'll be staying for the first two days. Man, this ajusshi had the most pimped out van-taxi ever! It felt like a child's daycare inside. And it was immaculately clean! The inside had bright red carpet. In between the front and back, there was this fake log that kind of separated the sections, and it had a holder for a roll of toilet paper (used here instead of a kleenex box). The back seat had a white cover and bright orange/red/blue pillows attached to the head rests. And there was some sort of cartoon seat-cover on the front seat. Thus, the bright bold colors and the cartoons making the atmosphere seem very happy and child-like.

I really liked the driver. He was super nice, and had this slightly tacky-korean mobster look going. Slicked back hair and a gold earring. haha! He told me all about the renovation of the airport and about all the bridges being built near the airport using some German design/technology.

Nik was running errands for work when we got to his apt. so I went and loitered in the Garden Hotel (a very nice hotel) across the way. The taxi driver dropped me off and handed the valet guys my bags. I thought he might tell them I was just waiting for a friend, but he left that up to me. I did tell them in broken Korean and they totally let me just sit in their lobby for like 45 minutes! Wow.

Nik came and we went to his apt and I ate leftovers from the ETA's (I think this acronym stands for Fulbright's English teaching assistants?...) that they had made a few days before. Nice! Turkey, mashed potatoes, carrots, and stuffing! Yum! So, thats pretty much all that's happened thus far.

I need to go to the immigration office (hopefully tomorrow) to get my alien registration card so I can reactivate my phone!!!!

Running out of battery on my computer so bye!

The Rest of my Time at SupHo

2010-09-03T12:01:00.004+09:00

Hey~

So heres a brief run through about the rest of camp. I was so busy, I never got a chance to update after the first week!

The first session was awesome! I think I already talked about the girls in my cabin etc. But they were great! Most mornings they would wake up before the 7:30 alarm and I'd find them studying Korean! They cleaned the cabin daily without prompting and when it was our turn to do wakeup duty and meal presentation, they spent a lot of time planning and practicing for our presentation, pan-chan yeonguk (we had to do breakfast, lunch, and dinner). Here is a link to one of their best ones:

video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6HYGXcfp-0

During the first two week session I was also teaching samulnori, traditional Korean drumming twice a day. Once in the morning to the two weekers, who rotated everyday and later in the afternoon as an elective to villagers who had chosen to take my class.
At the end of the first two weeks, my elective class gave a performance at the talent show. I spend hours making the goggal hats for them to wear for their performance. I taught them a standing piece, which was pretty difficult to do within such a short span of time. But they did a great job, although they loathed the hats I made them wear. ^__^

video link to one of our practices:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMJ6YFs7U6w

video link to their performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jro8lKsFxtY

Pictures from the first two week session:

진혁 and 한용 the camp's two biggest eaters!!!

some of the staff at Casion Night

~me and a hundred rolls of kimbap~

Oren (3) and Soru (18 months), kids of some of the staff. Aren't they adorable!?

Our Kwangju Cabin!

All the first session two week campers

In between sessions, staff gets one day off during the weekend. I went with the credit kids into town on Saturday while they did laundry, went to Target, and out to dinner. That is the only day within the month that they are at camp that they are given back their contraband ( cell phones, ipods, books in English) and are allowed to eat Amerian junk food. And the kids go nuts! They buy loads of junkfood at Target and inhale it as fast and as much as they can before the end of the night, when everything is taken away again.

Credit Weekend Pictures:

campers invading the laundromat in Bemidji

Miseol, Youngeun, and Solmin at the laundromat

Mingee, Gayeong, Minji and me waiting for our laundry

Credit kids pigging out on junkfood at Target

(note the multiple gallons of ice cream)

Gross. The kids ate all this within a span of two hours.

and this is how the table looked after all the junkfood was devoured. Stomach ache...

I had my day off on Sunday and went into the town of Bemidji with a bunch of staff. It was sooo much fun! Honestly, we didn't do anything particularly exciting, but I think it was all the more fun because we were stuck on campus at camp for so long. haha! We walked around as a huge group and explored Bemidji and acted as tourists. We ended up eating dinner at Green Mill and ate ourselves silly.

Day off Pictures:

Our Day Off!!!!

Staff with Paul Bunyan and Babe the Big Blue Ox, Bemidji icons

Minji and me with Paul Bunyan's moccassins

Staff wearing Minnesota T-shirts (they were 3 for $10 at Walgreens)

getting ready for a cold Minnesota winter???

After dinner at Green Mill

At the Bemidji State Park

We watched the sun set and the beach was beautiful

walking the trails

*group shot*

Right after the first session ended I had to start getting ready for our I-Day performance. That was an undertaking. I-Day is when all of the language villages that are insession at that time get together to exchange music, dance, foods, and at the end each village gives a brief performance of some sort. Most are dance, theatrical, or musical performances.
Getting ready was rather stressful, but in the end it all turned out well! 수고했어요! It was a combination performance of taekwondo (martial arts), samulnori, gayageum (12 stringed zither), and b-boy (break dancing).
Because our performance plan kept changing, it was only finalized three days before our performance. So that meant the kids had one day to learn it and one day to practice it, and then it was show time! I had them practice from nap time through class time one day for a total of two hours! with a 7 minute water break. But afterwards, to try and make it up to them, I bought them all snacks.
It was really hot that day (of course) and I was literally tying ribbons on the kids uniforms as they were walking to the performance area, minutes before the ending ceremony started. Whew. ^^;;

Link to the big I-day performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n18OfqrCGks

Pictures from I-Day:

SupHo's grand entrance to I-Day

Charlie and Youngeun give Concordia Language Villages a special birthday wish

for their 50th Bday and introduce Sup Sogui Hosu

Junghye unni with her niece and nephew. So cute!

Amazing fruit stand put on by the French camp

Soru eating a snack

After I-Day, our class could finally relax, but just a bit. We still had to get something ready for the talent show/closing program. I decided I wanted them to do seol changu, or a changu solo. Some of the kids had never really played changu before, as they preferred one of the other three instruments. In the end, we did a bit of the changu solo and then transitioned into other beats that included the other instruments.
One of the beats we did has a chant that goes with it. I had the kids come up with new lyrics for the chant to use vocabulary they they knew and understood instead of the traditional chant which talks about having a good harvest.

This is what they came up with:
모기 모기 싫어 싫어 아! 아! 아! 아!
mosquitoes mosquitoes hate hate ah! ah! ah! ah! (direct translation)
김치 김치 좋아 좋아 매워! 매워! 매워! 매워!
kimchi kimchi like like spicy! spicy! spicy! spicy!
숲호에서 재미있는 사물놀이 앗싸!
At SupHo we play fun Samulnori yeah!
가 나 다 라 마 바 사 아 자 차 카 타 파 하
(the Korean alphabet) gah nah dah rah mah bah sah ah jah chah kah tah pah hah

It was a hit. The kids nailed it. It was awesome.
Here is a video of their performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RySRQtxU_Dw

On another note, the second session was for the younger kids and there was low enrollment for the younger two weekers this year. So there were only 7 girls and 2 boys! Since there were only 7 girls, we didn't need the two 2 week girls cabins that we had had the first session (there were ~25 two weekers the first session), so Eunji unni and I moved from our beloved Kwangju cabin to Busan along with Kyungmoon and Jenny, who were the counselors for the other former two week cabin.
Busan was much larger, but our first night with the second session girls we had three bats in our cabin! So we had to call the bat catchers aka. some of the boy counselors. One of the guys came and searched for an hour. He found two bats and the girls had to move rooms. Needless to say, the girls were a bit freaked out.

poor little bat. you are doomed.

As long as no one is asleep while there are bats in the cabin, there is no problem. The problem occurs when someone is asleep in a cabin with bats because bat bites are so small you may not be able to see them. In that case, everyone who was asleep while the bat was there needs to get rabbies shots, which cost $3,000 a person!!!!
I think over the span of our four weeks at camp, there were something like 40 bats caught in various cabins and camp buildings. After they are caught they need to be sent in for testing and then are euthanized. Sad.

In comparison to our first session with the older campers, it was definitely different having younger kids our second session. They were much more active, impulsive, and full of energy!!! haha. But also lots of fun and very cute!
Here is a video of them doing their meal presentation. They presented the food to the melody for "doe a deer." So cute!

Video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEklLss-wS8

Pictures from Second Session:

Doesn't my class look like a blast?...

That's better

much happier looking

my drumming class - group shot

2 weekers burying Joonsu in the sand pile

girls putting makeup on male counselors

good job. Pil looks beautifully creepy...

Soru followed trend and got a faux hawk

kids during evening program playing "Golden Bell"

to test their Korean vocabulary knowledge

campfire

2 weekers at the campfire

Minji, Jinwha unni and me out on the lake riding the pontoon

being silly during meal time

Gayeong and I during meal time

Okju eating a baby octopus!

saying goodbye

Anyhow, each session the two weekers put together a video based on a folktale that we focus on during camp. This year we did the Nymph and the Woodcutter (선녀와 나무꾼) - the skit where I was pregnant and bore three children. ^^ So, the kids also acted out and filmed a rendition of this folktale.

Session 1 (ages 14-18):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8723rUfInI

Session 2 (ages 8-13):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6kmw9sXJxs

They all did a great job and the videos turned out hilarious!

First Week of Camp

2010-07-30T15:13:00.004+09:00

Hi again,

So, we're nearing the bench mark of our first week of camp. I'm in a cabin with Eunji unni and 7 two week villagers that range from 12-18 years of age. They're all really sweet and things are working out fine so far.

I'm teaching two classes a day, but I've been super busy because I was also helping out with two evening programs and my group (counselors) had to prepare a skit/scene from a Korean folktale "선녀와 나무꾼" aka "The Sky Fairy and the Woodcutter." Lights out are at 10:30 so we really can't meet until after that, so I've been going to be rather late. But its fun.

The first class I teach is a rotating class, so I teach the same lesson everyday. Nice ^^ Its really basic just to give the kids a taste of drumming and to give them a chance to try all the different instruments. The second class I teach is in the afternoon and is an elective, so the kids choose to be in that class. That class is longer and more involved. I was trying to teach a new rhythm today but I think it may have been a bit too hard... I'll need to figure something out tomorrow to make sure everyone is understanding it.

I should go to bed... Tonight's evening program was called "숲 속의 대조" or "Welcoming to the Forest". It was really neat, but I swear I have a tick somewhere on my body. I really hope not...
Somehow I got volunteered to sing with one other counselor, Jenny, while Eunji (my cabin mate) played danso, traditional flute. We dressed in hanbok (traditional dresses) and sang arirang, a folk song. But the whole program was supposed to be very calming, so we needed to wait til dark. So at dusk, we walked into the woods and literally stood in the middle of the forest with one lantern and waited for the kids to come.

When they came, we sang our song and then they continued down the trail to the main area where the main performance was. I was really impressed with everyone. No one spoke a word. It was dead silent the entire time, which is what they were supposed to do.
The main performance was Saejin oppa painting traditional style calligraphy on a huge white piece of paper lit by lanterns while Jinwha unni played gayageum (12 string zither). He painted it from the back so it looked like it was magically appearing from the front, as we could only see the lines from the paint appear on the paper. Then Soonyoung came out and did salpuri, a traditional korean dance. Afterward, we all went back and took turns burning a wish we had written on a piece of paper in the camp fire. Traditionally, Koreans would write wishes and burn then and believed the wishes would be carried to heaven.

Because we had to wait until it was dark, we finished late and didn't get back to our cabin til 11:00. Unfortunately, tomorrow is our cabins turn to wake everyone up so we have to get up extra early.... Each cabin takes a turn at waking everyone else up in the morning with korean drums (its early but really fun. I remember thinking it was the greatest idea when I was a villager), doing meal presentations, which are short skits to introduce the food and new vocabulary, and setting the table at meal times. Wish me good luck on waking up... Ugh.

Anyhow, we did our big skit today for the villagers at 근마당 this morning. I was the maiden aka the pregnant lady wearing purple who bore 3 children in 15 minutes. haha.

If you want to catch up on the story, as we were the third scene, check out
Scene 1:
click here or go to
lhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N99SVk5OwE&feature=channel

Scene 2:
click here or go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RciwfJvPvDc

Here is part 1 of our scene:
click here or go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcjaBLaHdD0&feature=channel

Part 2 of our scene:
click here or go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPCqH8bnRNQ&feature=channel

Also, the camp, Sup Sogui Hosu also has a blog (click on "blog" to get to the link) that has videos, photos and blog entries written and compiled by Kyungmoon (you may remember her from previous entries as we were in Korea together).

The link is:
http://supsoguihosu.villagepages.org/blog/

Hopefully I'll get around to adding pictures at some point. I don't have a lot of spare time, but I'll try~
Good night!

Camp Orientation

2010-07-25T14:21:00.003+09:00

Hi Hi Hi~

So, today is my last official day of CLV (Concordia Language Village) orientation. I got here last Sunday and we will pack up and leave for our camp site tomorrow afternoon.

I'll be working at Sup Sogui Hosu (again) as a Samulnori drumming teacher and counselor. So, before we get to camp we have CLV orientation. Our session had 5 villages (camps) here: Korean, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, and French. We have whole group meetings as well as individual camp meetings.

We have breakfast from 7:30-8:30 and then various meetings throughout the day until 10ish at night. I think the earliest I went to bed was 1am this entire week. Ugh.

The whole group meetings range from everything from health and safety to conflict resolution strategies. Some of them were helpful and interesting, especially in relation to my education degree, and some were extremely boring...

Our individual site meetings were with all the Korean camp staff. The meetings were all conducted in Korean... wow. at times I was sure my head was going to explode. It was pretty overwhelming and I felt bad because I think it seemed like I wasn't really contributing, but by the time I figured out what was being said and came up with my own thoughts or ideas the moment was long past... Plus, our camp site has a total of 6 other children under the age of 6, so they were often running around (literally) in the middle of the circle of people, which was rather distracting. They were so cute, I would watch them and then realize I wasn't listening anymore. But by that time, I was way lost on the direction of the discussion.

However, we also did fun things (in Korean) like learn new songs and dances, play new games that we plan on teaching villagers, and create skits.

We did have a fun adventure in Bemidji on Thursday. We wanted to go see the movie Inception but our meeting didn't end til 9:45ish. So, we got to the theater about 20 min. after the movie had started. We got there and the doors were locked. There were 8 of us! A few girls knocked on the windows and the girls inside sat there eating popcorn and ignoring us. Finally, a guy came to the door and told us that their ticket machines shutdown at 10pm. What! That's what we get for being in Bemidji. So, we ended up at Applebees.Then we took Bob the construction cone around for a photo shoot in Bemidji.

Overall, its been a fun although tiring experience. I think the immersion aspect of orientation made it rather stressful but also good. At least this time I'm getting paid for doing language immersion instead of having to pay for language immersion.

*pics will come soon

Back in the States

2010-07-06T01:51:00.002+09:00

*I posted another unfinished post I found under May 24, 2010 titled something like 'Soraksan = Buddha's Birthday.' So to check it out go to the May section on the right hand side, click May, and then choose the new entry~

Hi~ So, I've been back in the States for nearly 2 weeks now.

I flew from Korea to Chicago with Mary, which was really nice! The flight was roughly 12 hours (thanks to the tail wind!) and went by surprisingly fast!
We had different connecting flights from O'Hare to MSP, but there was some crazy weather storms, lightening in the air, so both our flights got canceled! Over 30 flights in all that day. Luckily, I got on as standby on another flight into MSP airport. Mary could only find a flight to Duluth! so her parents picked her up there. Wow, what a trek!

Anyhow, no real big culture shock or anything too exciting to report.
I think the hardest thing I've found is getting used to living in a suburb and not being able to go out whenever I want to where ever I went. I'm used to Seoul, where everything is accessible by subway, bus, or walking. I definitely miss that.
And I'm not used to driving everywhere.
I'm also not really used to air conditioning anymore... That's weird because I used to not be able to stand heat. I don't think I like it any better, but its kind of weird feeling cold in the middle of summer, especially when you know its like 90 outside...
It's nice being home with my parents and see friends I haven't seen in a long while! I also got to eat Chipotle, which was unavailable in Korea.

eating Chipotle~

trying on Susie's amazing dress she got as a gift from her host family (both of us are now back in MN)

Becca took me to a show for my birthday! afterward, she needed to finish an online quiz for her summer course ^^

I'll be leaving to work at Sup Sogui Hosu, the Korean language camp the 18 of July and will be there for 5 weeks. It should be fun, but I'm really nervous about my Korean language skills... Last time, since I was kitchen staff, I wasn't really required to speak in Korean the entire time. However, this time, I'm a counselor and will be teaching a drumming class, which I'm supposed to teach in Korean. Ugh. Wish me good luck!! I think I need it.

Til later!

~Goodbye Korea! Til Later~

2010-06-23T02:02:00.014+09:00

So, I'm sitting on my bed, or rather, my host sister's bed as my time in Korea has turned into mere hours. I can't believe I'm already going home. As I think back to when I first got here, it sort of feels like a long while ago and sort of feels like yesterday. I guess most good things feel like that...

When I got to Korea, it was damn cold! And the snow lasted forever! It warmed up in MN before it warmed up here, which is very atypical. My bags are mostly packed and I think I did a much better job of keeping things under control this time... Last time, after study abroad, was kind of a disaster... My luggaged ended up weighing almost twice the allotted amount. Oops... That sucked. I have two suitcases, a carry-on, and my backpack. I did ship a box of winter clothes/jackets and all of my Korean textbooks home, as I swear it was my textbooks that did me over last time!

LAST TIME:

THIS TIME:

I met as many people as I could fit in the past few days, did as much shopping as possible, and called/contacted everyone else. I went out to dinner with my host family tonight and they were asking about my various friends who were in Korea, and most of them have now left! or are leaving soon. Susie is gone, Kyungmoon is going, Becca left, Mary and I are going together, and Nik and Emily are going leaving in a month, although they'll be back in Korea by the end of the summer for another year.

At the best Chinese restaurant!

Bye Kyungmoon! See you at SupHo!

Nik and Dan

Originally, I was supposed to leave July 3, but since I got sick/had surgery, I'm leaving a bit earlier. I kind of wish I could stay longer, but c'est la vie. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'll be back sometime next year.^^

A picture from my last tutoring session with Sara and Justin~

Yesterday, I met up with Sarang and we had lunch with her uncle. Then we went glasses shopping at namdaemun. I got new glasses, as well as a suitcase. Then, I met up with Mugong, from Tte to buy the cloth for tying drums. A few of the other tte members came along too (Maktoe, Ttegu, and Mangsa). We were in the traditional music area and I totally ran into my drumming teacher from 4 years ago, when Sarang and I took drumming lessons (summer of 2006!). Crazy! and I was really surprised that he A. recognized me and B. remembered my name. Funny. Anyhow, we went out to eat and then I headed back home to drop off all of my stuff, which was really heavy!

Tte - Maktoe, Ttegu, Mugong, Mangsa

Then, around 9, I met up with Jacyln, one of my classmates at Dongdaemun. Fun fun! I got some summer clothes and gifts for people. But they've kind of redone the market area, so we were really disoriented and couldn't find the main 시장... weird.

1. Mmm.. goodbye delicious street food! 2. we witnessed some serious organized chaos Korean style - the unloading of clothes and merchandise for the markets and stores. wow...

Today, I met up with Eugene, from my drumming class at 9:30 and we hungout for a bit. She is so sweet and gave me a bunch of really cute socks!!! Then, I headed over to 종로5가 insearch of drumming pants; Eugene told me I should buy them there. Then, I headed to Itaewon to meet Sarang and Youngwha unni for lunch and to get a few gifts. At 4, I met my reading/listening teacher at Sogang for a bit. That was fun - she is really nice and one of the most cheerful teachers I've ever had! Then, I came back and tutored John one last time - he has a test coming up next week. And then, my host family and I went out to dinner one last time^^

Ku Eunmi seunsangnim

My host family took me to a gogi restaurant and we had kalbi, grilled ribs. Yum! After dinner we went to the park across the street from their apartment complex. It was a really nice night out so there were a lot of people around and my host siblings went wild, running all over the place. There was a big group of ajumas exercising. My host mom told me they are there every single night! It was so quintessentially Korea; a large group of ajumas, most wearing matching shirts, dancing in unison to a choreographed song. Plus, there were people practicing their inline speed skating, which is also very popular here.

Anyhow, my flight leaves Incheon at 11:40. So, my host dad being super nice and giving me a ride to Gyeongbukgung to KoRoot, where I will meet Mary and from there YunJeong unni is going to give us a ride to the airport. How sweet! So, I'll probably need to leave the house around 7:15 am. Hm... maybe I should go to bed.

There is a huge match against Nigeria tonight though, so I think at least half of Korea is still awake. The match starts at 3 or 3:30 am Korea time... I talked with Emily, who originally had plans to wake up and watch the game at her students dormitory, although, she is rethinking that idea. I also met up with my reading/listening teacher today and she said her current students (summer session) are all going to jimjilbang (public bath house) to watch the game.
And I think Mary is just staying up all night and hanging out with people and watching the game, and then leaving tomorrow morning. Crazy!
Well, good luck Korea!
Wish me safe travels!
Til next time~

Korean Sign Language III

2010-06-23T01:24:00.002+09:00

So, here is the third part of my very short introduction to Korean Deaf culture. hehe. So, Joo, the woman I met at Sarang's church who interpreted for me, invited me to go to a "deaf movie" this past Saturday. I thought that'd be pretty interesting, so I decided to go. I went to an ASL movie last year at WSD with Crystal (one of my roommates) and that was a pretty cool experience, so I wanted to see how this movie was.

I met up with Joo and another woman whom I had met the previous week at 약수역 and we hung out at a Dunkin Donuts for about half an hour chatting, while we waited for another guy to show up. The guy who we were waiting for is from China. He is ethnically Korean, but grew up in China because his dad moved there for work. So, apparently he came back to Korea to learn Korean Sign Language. I don't know his name either! He had a Chinese name and a Korean name, neither of which I remember...

my movie ticket

Anyhow, we headed over to the movie. The film was made by Deaf Media which I think is a production company... and the event was held in some sort of Community Center. I didn't really know what the movie was going to be about or what type of film it was going to be. Joo showed me the ticket and said that there were two parts to the film (documentary). The first was about deaf Koreans living in Japan. The second was about deaf communities in India and Nepal.

To give a tiny bit of background on the Japan documentary, there is a fairly large group of ethnic Koreans living in Japan, and some of their families have been in Japan for 3 or 4 generations (presumably after the war).
When I studied abroad back in the spring of 2008, we took a trip to Japan and while in Osaka - where the largest concentration of jae-il kyopos (재일 교포), as they are called lives - learned about the Korean-Japanese population and history. It seemed that although they're very much integrated into Japanese society and some even have Japanese names, most of them attend Korean school instead of a Japanese school. And even though their families have lived in Japan for generations, they are still not allowed Japanese citizenship and must maintain their Korean citizenship.
So, this documentary discussed the interesting situation the Korean deaf population in Japan is in. Many of them expressed that they feel they missed out on learning their Korean heritage and culture, as they could not attend Korean school and instead attended Japanese deaf schools. They don't know Korean Sign Language (although apparently due to the 35 year long Japanese occupation of Korea, KSL and JSL are 70% the same... However, Joo told me she couldn't understand what they were saying). In addition, the Japanese government wont provide them with any support or assistance, as they are not Japanese citizens, and the Korean government does not provide them with any because they are living abroad. So, they are kind of stuck in an odd state of limbo.

The second movie, about India, was a bit more interesting in my opinion, because the filmmakers traveled around the perimeter of India and into Nepal to explore and meet new people in various deaf communities. It was interesting to see the different signing styles used. Some of the people interviewed used American Sign Language, but most of them used British Sign Language (which is completely different from ASL) due to the British colonization.
The movie had no sound, everything was signed in either KSL, JSL, ASL, or BSL, and everything was subtitled in Korean at the bottom. I tried reading the subtitles but most of it was over my head and went by WAY too fast. Sometimes I got the gist of what they were saying, but Joo interpreted the entire movie for me into ASL so I could understand it. Whew. That was a lot of work for her!

After the movie, there was a Q & A session. We only stayed for a bit because we were hungry, but it was interesting how it was conducted. At the time we were there, they were discussing the first film, about Japan. So, they had the filmmaker, who is Korean, the MC, one of the Japanese-Korean people who was interviewed in the film, a Japanese Sign Language interpreter, and a voice interpreter. So, an audience member would ask a question, and the MC signed it so the audience could see it. While he was signing it, the JSL interpreter was interpreting the question into JSL for the movie participant, and then there was someone interpreting what was being asked and said into spoken Korean. Wow, talk about a lot of languages going on all at once!

L: audience member asking director a question, director, Japanese-Korean guy, JSL interpreter

Anyhow, after the film, the four of us went out to dinner. The Chinese guy and I kept trying to talk, but we had some serious communication issues because he didn't know any ASL and I don't know KSL. So, he was ask me something and I would sit there and thing and stare at him. Then I would ask him something and he would sit there and think... and then we'd laugh and give up. Joo and the other woman, who knows a bit of ASL, would also help us get our message across.
One of the questions he asked me was if I had a lot of friends. the sign for friend in KSL looks an awful lot like the sign for marriage in ASL, so I thought he asked me if I was married, to which I exclaimed, I'm only 22!

FYI the Chinese guy doesn't actually look sad, its just a bad picture of him...

After dinner, we went back to Dunkin Donuts and met another guy who was going to the movie, as there were two showings. He had lived in the States for a while 15 years ago, so he know a bit of ASL too. Man, I felt so monolingual... Sad. Americans are terrible compared to just about every other country...

Anyhow, the movie was an interesting experience, and more than that, trying to communicate with a variety of people with only a slight common knowledge of the same language was definitely a memorable experience!

HyeJung and me - she is going to the States to study in August

That night I slept over at Sarang's and the next day we went to her church to the deaf service because I wanted to say goodbye to people. After the service, we went out to lunch. Sarang knows a bit of ASL and a bit of BSL (she grew up in Indian), which know one there knew. But she did a pretty good job of communicating with people and HyeJung can read lips really well, so Sarang was talking to her in Korean. The majority of people at our table knew ASL, so most of the conversations were in ASL, although I did learn a few Korean signs. I just thought it was really amusing how many languages were going on at once in different modes of communication; KSL, ASL, spoken English and spoken Korean. If only I knew them all!

Korean Sign Langauge II

2010-06-19T02:41:00.002+09:00

On Thursday I went to visit the Seoul National School for the Deaf (국립서울농학교). Since the school is down the street from KoRoot, Pastor Son and his wife, me and Pastor Kim, director of KoRoot, met at KoRoot and headed out from there.
The school was started in 1913 during the Japanese occupation and will be celebrating its centennial in three years. We went in and met with the headmaster, who gave us a very through tour of the school museum as well as school/facilities. The headmaster spoke in Korean, so Pastor Kim translated into English for me and the Pastors wife interpreted for him. Pastor Kim was really impressed because the headmaster knows every single one of his students name's, which is really uncommon in Korea. If I understood correctly, the school serves infant through high school and apparently, the school has such good facilities and curriculum that hearing students want to go there too; they currently have 40 hearing students and 131 deaf students enrolled.

artifacts in the museum

some of the early KSL books

Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan came to visit the school in 1938!!! (I think they said Helen Keller is the one on the right)

Pastor Son in the museum

The buildings all seemed really new and the decor inside was sooo nice! Everything was so aesthetically pleasing and pretty! It looked like a children's museum.
The headmaster took us through the schools museum first. It was really interesting and gave the history of the school, Korean Sign Language etc. Interestingly, all the informational signs detailing the schools history were in both Korean and English. The school was established in 1913 and in 1946, Yoon Baekwon, the first Korean headmaster (I think), created of the Korean manual alphabet.

original alphabet created in 1946

present day alphabet

We also went to their speech and language area and the audiologist said that their equipment is better than any hospital around. And they had really cool games and computer programs etc. One of things they had was a pad and when you stepped on a certain colored square, it would show a picture and make a sound of something, like a car horn. They also had another program that was obviously Korean-made, as it made sounds of various Korean traditional instruments, like the sogo!

All the classes have SmartBoards (HUGE ones too! LdF, the school I student taught at had them, and at the time I thought they were pretty sizable, but these ones put them to shame. haha!) We went into one classroom and the teacher was showing us how on the school website they have various videos in KSL, and spoken Korean for the kids to use. They had the national anthem in sign, as well as the text. And other videos used students telling folktales in KSL etc. It was really cool! Pastor Son, alumni of that school was really impressed. We also saw the dorms, and rec room, which are really nice.

Although the school is really nice and equipped with great facilities, I learned that most of the teachers come in not knowing how to sign and learn it from the students as they teach. From my understanding, the deaf ed. programs don't require teachers to learn sign and leave it as an elective. Plus, until very recently, like the past few years, the school had no deaf teachers. But I guess the deaf community began protesting so the school hired two to "appease" them. One of them is Pastor Son's friend, so we went and met with him for a bit. He teaches high school social studies, and from how I understood it, his curriculum is so good, other schools are starting to implement it. Wow! Kudos, because curriculum development is really hard!

Since I wrote my senior thesis for both my anthropology and education majors on deaf education last year, and spent some time at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf, I was really interested in this school and wanted to check it out. It was really awesome tour of the school and I felt I learned a lot.

Korean Sign Language I

2010-06-19T02:04:00.002+09:00

This was so long ago, I can't even remember the specifics, but I think one time I mentioned to Nik that I wanted to check out the Seoul deaf school (located near KoRoot) and he mentioned it to Pastor Kim, the director of KoRoot, an adoptee guest house in Seoul. The director goes to a church (same church as Sarang) with a deaf Pastor and said he could introduce me. But, things got busy and honestly, because it was a meeting through church and I'm not Christian, I felt a bit uncomfortable about it, so I just kept putting it off.
But, Nik mentioned it again last week and since my trip is coming to an end, I decided hey why not. I knew if I didn't do it, I would regret it, so I made an appointment to meet Pastor Kim (KoRoot director) at his church last Sunday.

I was introduced to Pastor Son, who is deaf and leads services for deaf and hearing congregants. He was really really nice and knew a bit of American Sign Language (ASL). (*Every country has its own sign language, so Korean sign lang. and American sign lang. are completely different) My ASL is super rusty because I haven't actually formally studied it since high school and haven't signed in over a year, since doing my observation at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf during college. However, it slowly started to come back throughout the day.

His wife, who is an interpreter asked me if I would prefer to have the service translated into spoken Korean or ASL. Since my Korean still isn't super great, I said ASL, as my ASL comprehension far surpasses my Korean comprehension. She seemed to think this was really funny, but said she would find me someone who knew ASL. There were two women, one who had studied in the States for 4 months, and another who had traveled around South East Asia and picked it up from other travelers she had met. That is crazy cool, if you ask me!

Anyhow, the woman Hyejung, who had studied in the States was in the choir, so the other woman, Joo, sat next to me and interpreted the sermon/service from KSL to ASL. Actually, it was really cool. So, the pastor's wife was interpreting it into spoken Korean, and the text for the hymns and passages was projected onto a screen, and someone had lent me an Korean/English bible, so I could read the certain passages that were being addressed in English. Plus, I could watch the pastor signing in KSL and get a more condensed version in ASL. So, I would hear what was being said and perhaps get the gist or it or at least the theme or concept from various words etc. that I recognized, and then maybe read it in Korea and piece it together some more, and then, Joo would tell me in ASL. In Korean you would describe that situation as 복잡해 or congested/busy. haha.

Anyhow, the service was a very interesting experience. On top of it being carried out in multiple languages and means of communication (text, auditory, visual), they were discussing some passage about Peter and some visitors. Early in the service, Joo had asked me if I was Christian and I said I was Jewish. She didn't know the ASL sign for Jewish, so I finger spelled it. But she didn't know that word in English, so I wrote it in Korea and she got it. Whew.
Anyhow, this whole passage was about how g-d sends down a sheet filled with unkosher animals and tells Peter to go kill and eat. And he protests because he says they're unclean. So, during the sermon I got a lot of questions from Joo about what Jews do and don't do. haha.

So, of course, right when the Pastor starts his actual sermon, all of a sudden I had to go the bathroom. Arg... I felt like it would have been rude to get up and leave, so I held it. I figured it wouldn't go too long. Well, it did, and then we had to stand up! ah! And then, when I was about to burst, they called up new people, which included me. I had to go up in front of everyone and introduce myself. That is stressful in it of itself, plus I really needed to go the bathroom, plus, I wasn't sure what language to introduce myself in. I asked when I got up there, and the pastor said I should do it in ASL, but the pastors wife, didn't really know ASL, so she couldn't figure out my name. So I said it out loud like three times, but for some reasons, she misunderstood me and said my name was LeeAnn. So not my name. lol! Anyhow, after that, they called up all the people with June birthdays. After we sang happy birthday, I booked it out of there and found the bathroom. ^^

After the service, everyone went to lunch together at a neighboring restaurant. I sat with the KoRoot director, Pastor Son and his wife, and Joo. The pastors wife interpreted from KSL to Korean. Joo interpreted from KSL to ASL and Pastor Kim (KoRoot) interpreted from Korean to English. Whoa.
I primarily talked with Joo because she was closest to my age and is a really interesting, well traveled person. At lunch, Pastor Son, who is the past president of the Seoul Deaf Association and an alumni of the Seoul National School for the Deaf said he would take me and Pastor Kim on a tour of the school that coming Thursday. (We went on Thursday and the school was really nice!)

Nik was actually supposed to join us for lunch because he had something to give me, but had difficulties on the purple line because its confusing and splits... He ended up going the wrong direction, so he was a bit late. After lunch, I talked with Pastor Kim a bit and then went back to the church. When I got back, there were a few people who had memorized passages from the bible and we reciting them from memory. Wow, I am terrible at memorization!
Nik came, I brought him up and he caught the last five minutes of the service.

Afterward, some of the congregants hung around including Joo and Hyejung and we sat there and chatted for a good hour and a half. A lot of the people I met seemed to know a little bit of ASL, so we could kind of communicate and if someone got stuck, we would ask Joo or Hyejung to translate. It was a very cool experience, linguistically and otherwise speaking, and I met a bunch of really nice people! Joo invited me to go see a movie with them this Saturday, so I shall report back on how that goes. Good night!

World Cup Fever

2010-06-19T01:01:00.004+09:00

So, the World Cup (soccer) is going on right now in South Africa. It is the Stanely cup of soccer times 50! Because it takes 32 soccer teams from 32 countries.
Korea hosted the World Cup back in 2002 and goes nuts every time the World Cup happens, which is every four years.

The color and slogan of the Korean team is the red devils. I don't know about soccer crazy countries, but it is definitely an experience to be in a country that loves soccer during these games. Plus, Korea is a pretty nationalistic country, so there's a lot of national spirit going on. For example, if one of the soccer players royally screws up during a game, the entire country will hate him. Seriously. I mean, if someone messes up during the Super Bowl people get angry about it, but a year down the road, people won't still hate his guts for it. Not so here. Plus, if Korea does really well, the team members get exempt from doing their mandatory military service.

Last Saturday was the first game Korea played, against Greece. It was pouring rain all day, but thousands and thousands of people showed up to cheer at cheering sites all around the city. EVERYONE was wearing red! Emily and Nik came to Seoul for the game, and we meet up at COEX mall to cheer. Since, I was still a bit sick, I didn't stay for the entire game. But, I felt I had to go for a bit. Haha.

Emily and I met up early and wanted to buy red shirts, since didn't have one. We were at TechnoMart and saw this huge line and a sign saying free shirts. We were like, 'awesome!' and hopped inline. When we were nearing the front, I noticed that everyone had tickets in their hands. I was like, 'oh no...' We asked the woman in front of us, and she said that we needed to get tickets on the 9th floor in order to receive a free shirt, but that the tickets were free. I turned to Emily and was like, 'run.' So, she ran up 9 flights of escalators only to find out that the tickets had all been given out. So sad. Meanwhile, I was holding our spot in line and the lady in front offered us one of her tickets. So Sweet! But turns out, you hand the ticket in, receive a number, and an hour later, at 7, you take the number and get your shirt. Wow, way way way too complicated. Plus, we had to meet everyone at 7, so it wouldn't have worked out. I thanked the lady but told her we had planned to meet friends at 7, so it wouldn't work out anyway.

So, Emily and I headed to COEX in the pouring rain without our shirts... We got to the place we were supposed to meet everyone a bit early, so we headed out to the cheering site to look around. We saw a line - not too long - and it looked like people we getting shirts. So we jumped in line. When we got to the front I asked for an extra shirt for Sarang (she was still sick and couldn't go) and they gave me one! Nice!!! Free shirts and we only waited about 5 minutes!

Korean teacher, Kim BoKyeong and me

Nik, Emily, and I

fans

people ontop of a shoe shinning booth

someone's attempt to climb ontop of the telephone booth

soccer cheer "대한민국 짝-짝 짝-짝 짝"

We met up with Nik, my speaking teacher from Sogang, who coincidentally has a mutual friend with Nik and Emily, and my teacher's two friends. We ate dinner and headed out to watch the game. I only stayed for about 20 minutes because I didn't wanna get sick again and also because I wanted to watch the rest of the game with Sarang, but it was really fun! the energy from the crowd was crazy!!!
It was a sea of red and unfortunately, it was so crowded, I couldn't really even see the screen. People were sitting on top of shoe shinning huts and climbing on top of payphone booths!

I went back to Sarangs, gave her her shirt and a pair of devils horns I'd bought her, and we watched the rest of the game. On the way back, I rode the bus and everyone was watching the game on their phones. When Korea scored their second goal, everyone on the bus cheered and the bus driver honked his horn to the tune of one of cheers. Korea beat Greece 2 to 0. NICE!

Korea's second game (Korea v. Argentina) was this past Tuesday. Originally, I was supposed to go to City Hall and watch it with SupHo people, but I ended up going to Sarang's house. We went and watched most of the game at a nearby park that had a huge screen. Since she lives in a more residential area, the cheering place was more family oriented and felt like the 4th of July but with soccer.

screen and the fans

~sarang and me~

right after Korea scored their first (and only) goal

Sadly, Argentina won 4-1... Man, everyone was so sad. Argentina brought their A game and Korea did not... They seemed to really lack on their defense, but I don't know soccer very well.. Sarang was upset about the outcome and couldn't stop talking about the game the entire night. But, in any case, I had fun watching the game and cheering. ^^

Very Very Late Update

2010-06-19T00:27:00.001+09:00

Hi,

So sorry for the long lapse in blog entries!!! A lot has been going on the past few weeks. On May 28 I went to see one of the camp staff's gayageum performace, which was totally awesome! Afterwards, I crashed at Becca and Mary's hotel but I woke up around 6 in the morning with the worst stomachache ever!

Jinhwa unni's perfomance!

After about an hour or so and it not going away or lessening, I decided to wake up Mary and we went to the hospital. On the walk to the main road to catch a taxi, I threw up. That's when I knew, I was really sick. We went to Severance Hospital, which is connected to Yonsei University, as that was the only reputable hospital I really knew.

In the international wing, I saw the doctor. They checked a few things and sent me home with some medicine. Meanwhile, Mary had called Sarang to tell her I was sick and Sarang and her dad drove over, picked me up, and took me to their house. They live on the complete other side of the city~

That night, at Sarang's house, my stomach hurt so much I couldn't lie down. So at 3:30 am we went to the ER. I was there for a good 6 hours. They couldn't specifically figure out what was wrong. I got an IV and they did an xray and CT scan and they took my blood. Eventually, I went home.
The next day, Sarang's mom's friend, a nurse came over and checked on me. She gave me another IV and she checked a few things.

Sarang's mom is really good in oriental medicinal things, so she gave me acupuncture. Even though I was feeling really sick, I totally made Sarang take a picture.^^

The day after that, I was supposed to go back to the hospital where I had taken a CT scan, so the CT specialist could look at it. But since it was two days old they wanted to take another one. They also said I had some sort of blood infection or something because my white blood cell count was almost double the normal amount. weird. They said I might need surgery and it might be my appendix.
But the CT scanner on my floor was broken, so there was a huge backup. After like 2 hours of waiting for the dumb CT, Sarang's dad, who had been there with me the whole time, decided we should go to another hospital and I concurred. Whew. That hospital was kind of crazy!!! The ER, anyhow. It was way over crowded and they ran out of cots! So, there were people lying on the floor. It was really weird; it kind of looked like some sort of medical area in a third world country after a natural disaster... I know that sounds really horrible, but it was such a surprise because Korea is so technologically advanced and one of the top ten richest countries! I mean Korea is something like the 4 most richest country in Asia and 12th most richest in the world. Odd.

Anyhow, the nurse who had come to Sarang's house knew people at KyeongheeDae hospital, so I got in really fast! I was met at the curb with a wheelchair and everything was taken care of. I met the doctor, who interestingly, got his Medical Ph.D from the University of MN! He told me that I would probably have laparoscopic exploratory surgery to see if they could figure out what was wrong.
I got a double room, but my entire stay of 3 nights and 4 days, I didn't have a roommate, which was nice. Sarang stayed over 2 of three nights and since no one else was there, got to sleep on the bed. ^^

I went into surgery that night. In all of the hospitals I was at (I went to a total of three) the nurses would find out I couldn't speak Korean well and freak out. I literally had a few back away from me. haha. In retrospect its funny. The anesthesia guy tried to tell me what to do but the other nurses in the surgery room were like, 'oh she doesn't speak Korean.' well, I do a bit, because I obviously understood that... and he was like, "oh what do I do?!" In my head, I was like just stick the stupid mask over my mouth and put me to sleep. The end. Easy as that.

After surgery, the doctor told me that my appendix was swollen but hadn't burst, so that decided not to take it out. Later, when I talked to my mom, she said that our American insurance had called and been told that my appendix was taken out. What the heck... So, Sarang and I asked the nurse, and she was like, 'of course your appendix were taken out.' In a very matter of fact manner, like it was preposterous of us to ask that question. So, we asked another nurse, and she said the same thing, that my appendix were taken out. So, I told my mom that and she was like you need to figure this out asap. So, when the doctor stopped by later, we asked him and he said no, my appendix had not been take out and were still in my body. SKETCHY! So, I guess I'd say I'm 95-97% sure I still have my appendix.

After surgery, I wasn't allowed food (which I didn't care about, as I wasn't at all hungry) or water (which I reallllly wanted) for over 24 hours! And I hadn't had any water since 8am the day of my surgery! ugh. I had an IV, so it was okay, but I was sooo thirsty! wow.

Sarang and I hung out in the hospital and watched TV. She and her parents were so sweet and amazing!!! seriously. They helped and took care of everything!
My host family, Becca and Mary also came to visit while I was in the hospital, which was nice! After I got out, I went to Sarang's house and stayed there for 9 days. During that time, Sarang actually also had surgery, although hers was planned. She was in the hospital for 2 nights and three days and then came home and we lounged around her house together. Haha! Her parents must have been so worn out!

So, all in all, they made three incisions on my stomach, two very small ones and one that's a bit bigger to stick a camera in so they could look around. They did not take out my appendix, as far as I know and when I got my stitches taken out, it was surprisingly painful.

As of now, I'm pretty much as good as new. I'll be heading back to MN a bit earlier than originally planned due to being sick, so this is my last week in Korea!!! I leave next Wednesday Korea time and get back next Wednesday, Central time.

People Watching and too much time in Myeongdong!

2010-05-26T01:33:00.001+09:00

Yesterday afternoon I went with one of my classmates, Jacyln to see the movie "House Maid" aka "하녀" a remake of a 1960s film. Korea was kind of into these weird erotic films back then, and this is a remake of one of them. It was def. weird. We missed the first 10 min... but I don't think that would have helped any. The film was in the Cannes Film Fest. and thus, was being shown with English subtitles in Myeongdong. It was a good film but so weird.
My friend and I were the only ones laughing in the audience, although there were only about 6 or 7 people in the audience, including ourselves. I don't know why people didn't think certain scenes weren't funny!? They were awkwardly hilarious. Perhaps we're just super immature, but really, I don't think so.

Anyhow after that, I took the bus to Incheon, met up with Yunjeong unni and Eunji unni from camp, and went to the airport to pick up Mary and Becca!!! Woot woot!
Then we went back to Myeongdong, met up with another camp unni and Kyungmoon, and ate shabushabu for dinner!

Afterwards, we went for patbingsoo, and then I went back to Mary and Becca's hotel and ended up spending the night because I missed the subway home... but it was fun! Their hotel is pretty nice and has all these cool lights.

Mary and me

Becca and MoonCat

Today, Mary, Becca, and I wandered around, can you guess? Myeongdong, until Mary had to go for cooking lessons (SupHo sent her here to study Korean cooking, since she is working in the kitchen this year). I left for tutoring but found out it was cancelled, so I headed back to Myeongdong for the 4th time in 24 hours and met back up with Becca. whew. Since the weather was pretty dreary and cold we went to see the movie, "Dragon Trainer" the only one going on at the time we were there. I thought it was going to be pretty dumb but was pleasantly surprised!

Tonight I went to Tte for their weekly meeting. Mugong had an English assignment to pick a "high-tech product" and spend an hour watching and recording how people utilize it. I got really excited because I love people watching and miss taking fieldnotes for my various anthro classes, so I voluntarily enlisted myself as her helper. I gave her tips on how to take fieldnotes and we spent an hour in the subway station observing people who use the new Digital View machines.

There is a picture of Nik using one in my previous entry, but they're basically a huge touch screen computer for public use. I guess they're in the trial stage right now or something. There is also a phone, which currently gives you 5 minutes of free talk time to see if people would actually use its services. On the touch screen you can read the news, check the weather, look at the roadmap, which is basically google earth, look up new movies/synopses, check local dining, etc. Very awesome, if you ask me.

I'll write about Soraksan later. Goodnight!

Buddha's Birthday = VACATION!!! to SoRakSan

2010-05-24T15:40:00.003+09:00

*I just found this and realized I never finished it, so I shall now.

I went to SorakSan with my host family over the holiday weekend, Buddha's birthday~

We actually ended up leaving at night to beat the traffic. They had been planning to leave very early the next morning, so I went out to meet Mark in Sinchon for dinner, and towards the end of our meal, I got a phone call from my host mom informing me that we were actually leaving that night. So, I went home, packed up some clothes and necessities and we left~

I think the drive was about 4-5 hrs, but I fell asleep for most of it, so I couldn't really say... I was kind of assuming that it was going to be kind of like camping or going to camp. Boy was I wrong. My host mom's parents own an apt. right near Soraksan, so basically we got to stay in a really nice, new, sweet apartment! wow. It had an amazing view too! Out one side was the city and ocean and on the other was the mountain!

day view out towards the mountains

night view from the other side. The area where it just turns black and there are no more lights is the ocean.

We left Thursday night and left to go back to Seoul Sunday morning. On Friday we went hiking on the mountain. The mountain is huge, its more like a small mountain range. So, we picked 2 pretty easy trails to hike. The weather was perfect! and the scenery was beautiful. It was so nice to see lush green foliage! I really hadn't seen anything of the sort since I left Minnesota, actually before that, since when I left everything was covered in snow.

entrance to the National Park

John and Nicole getting water

Nicole and I on the trails

The second trail we hiked took us to a really nice stream that ran down the mountain. The water was extremely clear and the really cool part was that the rocks all around it had Chinese characters carved into them! I asked my host dad and he just said they used to do that way back when. I'm not sure how long ago that means, but I'm thinking pretty long ago. A lot of them looked really worn away. But they looked really neat!

view of a section of the mountain

carvings on the rock

a close-up

looking at the map

bunch of visor wearing ajumas coming!!! Ah, run and take cover!!

priceless video of John blowing his pinwheel with his nose! haha... he found the thing on the ground on our first day and wouldn't let it out of his sight for most of the trip~

Later that day, we went to the 대포항 fish market, which was awesome! We wandered around looking at the variety of fish and sea animals for sale (presumably, to be eaten) and other street food. I saw the craziest looking fish there! It was HUGE and had these gigantic sharp teeth. It looked terrifying!!! I can't imagine eating it...

the fish market

scariest, craziest looking fish ever! look at its teeth!!!

gigantic crabs

We also saw an American TV crew there filming for something. I really wanted to know, so I went up and asked one of the camera people. His response really bugged me and was very unsatisfactory. I asked him what they were filming for and he said, "something for American TV." (Obviously.) It was obviously a canned response that he told everyone, and I felt like he didn't realize I was American. So, I tried again. I asked him what station it was for and he told me PBS. He wasn't particularly friendly or talkative, so I gave up and wandered on. A bit later, I came across another few people from their filming/production crew and decided to try again. I asked one of the women who seemed to be in charge. She said, "For an American television program." (Again, obviously!) I pried for some more info, just because I was curious and it was bugging me that they were assuming I was Korean and didn't realize I was American. I got that it was for PBS, a new series, didn't have a name yet, and was focusing on Korea. I'm not sure if this means, just this particular episode focuses on Korea or if the entire series focuses on Korea. It was a bit more satisfactory than my first attempt. However, I thought it was really strange that both people assumed I was Korean (after I told the second lady that I was American, she seemed more willing to tell me details) because I was obviously speaking fluent English with a very American, actually Minnesotan accent.

American film crew

Anyhow, that was a huge tangent. After the fish market, we went to the beach and my host brother and sister went wild! They were so excited!!! There were speed boats giving people rides - it looked extremely unsafe and would def. not happen in the US. They were speeding around the shallow area where swimmers were and taking all these crazy turns to get the passengers all wet. They just seemed way to close to shore... I really wanted to touch the water; just dip my fingers in it to say that I had touched the East Sea, but right when I leaned over to touch it, a big wave came crashing in and got my shoes all wet... Arg. I guess that's what I get. Now I can definitely say, with conviction, that I have touched the East Sea.

darn... that kinda sucked

sunset from the beach

On Saturday, we went to a different beach. The beach is right in front of this very fancy resort that my host family stayed at one time. It was really nice and my host brother dug a big pit to push his sister into. (Later, when I was tutoring him in English writing, it was this event that he chose to write about ^^) There was also this big rock out in the water, but there was a sandbar so you could walk out and climb it. I wish I had a picture, but my host dad took it on his camera and I forgot to get it from him...

John's infamous pit of doom

Anyhow, after the beach we drove up to another point on the mountain and had lunch there. The trail there was pretty steep, so my host mom and sister hung around while my host dad, host brother, and I climbed it. I went pretty far, but then decided to turn around, as it just kept getting steeper and steeper. At one point I had to use a rope that was lying there (for that purpose) to pull myself up on a gravel path. It was really pretty though! My host brother has so much energy and had ran ahead - he and his dad made it all the way to the top!

John, CK, Nicole, and me

After that, we made a stop at Osaek, this famous mineral spring. My host mom said that its supposed to have healing powers and be really good for your health. (My host mom collected a bottle full and I tasted it and man was it disgusting! It just tasted dirty to me... My host sister vehemently spat her mouthful out and look to her mom like she was crazy to have given her that water. My host brother made the most hilarious face!)
So we went and my host brother had a great time skipping rocks and running around in the water. There was a famous waterfalls down about 2 or 3 km away. We were going to go there, but it was getting late and my host mom as tired. However, John (host bro) really wanted to go, so they compromised and we were to go part way and then turn around. John dashed off and CK (host dad), Nicole (host sis) and I followed.
It was really pretty and we walked quite a ways. But then John disappeared. CK went ahead to find him and Nicole and I turned around and went back to the car, where Young (host mom) was waiting. She got really worried when she found out that we couldn't find John and that he had run ahead. She tried to call, but there was no phone service out there. We waited a good 20-30 minutes until we saw CK and John walking towards the car. Whew.

the entrance to the spring

people gathered around collecting and drinking water

On the way back to the apartment, CK and Yong went to get dinner and dropped me and the kids off at a nearby beach. They had fun pretending to dig for buried treasure and swinging. The next morning we got up and left by 7. We got stuck in major traffic getting back to Seoul~ I think we were maybe 15-30 min. from their house and it took us over an hour... But we made it back!

It was a really great trip!!!!

THE END