Since Japan... Passover Seder, Mountain Climbing, and Poongmul!!!

Since Japan... I've been really busy. We had midterms last week. On Thursday I went to one of the most awesome plays I've ever seen with Stella, my friend from Shinparam (신바람 MN drumming group) who is also going to school here! She's majoring in theater, so her class had to go watch this play and I went along. The title is roughly translated as The Attack of the Washer. The actors were extremely good and it was really well done. Afterwards, she came and slept over.

Here is Stella and Pang (my roommate).

Friday I met up with a friend who grad. from Beloit! and is now teaching English here. I finally got to see the famous Kang-Nam, which is supposed to be the "rich" area. It was noticeably cleaner and less crowded, and there were a number of upscale restaurants. We walked around for a good while before deciding to come back over to Sinchon.

Jesse and me - he grad. last year

On Saturday I had samulnori class and afterwards I went to Sarang's house. Actually, first I went to her grandparent's house and had lunch (mandu guk - dumpling soup - which was amazingly good!!!). I saw her uncle which was really nice! I haven't seen him in like two years. After lunch Sarang's dad and I climbed Achasan Mountain; man does he climb fast! It was such a nice view though!!! I kept slipping because I was wearing my old converse which have absolutely no traction. Luckily, I came out unscathed. Later we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant and had tangsooyook, chapchae bop, and of course, jajang-myun. yum! What a way to start Passover, with breaded/friend pork... I felt a little guilty, but its really hard to try to keep kosher here... However, I did a pretty good job of keeping Passover the rest of the week. (Thanks for the Matzah Mom!!!) Anyhow, I had a really fun time.

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Sunday, I was planning on studying - I did, but only a little. I ended up having an impromptu Passover seder. I was planning on attempting one at some point and decided why not Sunday? It turned out pretty well. My mom sent me a Passover Hagadah written by a family friend (Richard Codor's Joyous Haggadah: The Illuminated Story of Passover as told by Richard and Liora Codor - its really good and you should all check it out!) so all I really needed was the food. I had matzah from my parents and the rest really wasn't too bad.

making charoset

Our shopping trip to GrandMart to find the ingredients was pretty interesting... I was looking for some sort of bitter herb, parsley, apples, honey, cinnamon, nuts, wine, and a some roasted chicken to use for the shank bone and to EAT! I bought roasted chickens at GrandMart (haha, kinda pathetic I know, but they're pretty tasty!). Luckily I held this before I knew the Bird Flu was in Korea... No one is sick yet, so I think we'll be okay. I made charoset with Asian pears, apples, honey, wine, and honey coated walnuts. It was actually really good! I must admit, I was really impressed with myself. Man is honey expensive (as was the wine)!!! I was going to buy it, but the smallest bottle was very large and expensive, so I found a small can of honey coated walnuts which I thought would do the trick and cover both the nuts and honey aspect. Unfortunately they didn't so I ended up going back and buying the honey... My friend Emily and I tried asking for nuts and then cinnamon. We found one of the workers who was selling feminine products who spoke a bit of English and we hounded her with questions. haha.

note the bowls and chopsticks; choice passover utensils!

The seder was really fun! none of my friends really knew about Passover, so we went through the haggadah and read all the little comics etc. I made everyone sing Dianu too.

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Monday and Tuesday I studied my butt off... I think I should have started a bit earlier. But it all worked out. I got my test scores back from my Korean test today and I did ok. I'm not sure how I did on my Pop Culture test. We were given four questions and we picked two to write essays on. I thought my first essay went pretty well, but my second one was not well structured. I'm still studying... I have my last midterm, Korean Grammar, tomorrow. We'll see how that goes... that class is hard because there are so many levels; every thing from absolutely no Korean language knowledge up to fairly fluent. The teacher teaches to probably an intermediate level, which is slightly above me.

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This past weekend was super fun. I had Samulnori class on Saturday morning. After class, Vianey and I met up with Lonny and Pang to go to Sarang's house. Her parents invited my to bring a few friends over for patbingsoo (a dessert with ice cream, fresh fruit, shaved ice, and sweet red beans). We ate at the restaurant in their building. They specialize in smoked duck, but since the Bird Flu is here, they aren't serving any foul. So, instead we had smoked pork; the neck and the belly. Afterwards, we went on a walk around the Han River. Sarang's dad suggested we go to Achasan, the mountain we climbed last weekend. Her mom interjected and suggested the Han River. I chose the river because I really don't think my friends would have appreciated climbing a mountain. On our walk around the river, they were about 10 to 15 ft. behind Sarang's dad and I at all times. haha. It was cool; we got to see wind surfers!

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Tonight marked the start of a two-week, everyday, three hour poongmul practice. I'm psyched! Tonight we didn't actually drum; we watched a poongmul video and then learned how to make those big huge puffy hats they wear! its surprisingly easy! we all get to make our own. They're made out of tissue paper and cardboard; all the supplies comes in a kit! Sorry, I'm so busy, I've been writing this post over a few days. I started making my hat!!! Its fun! So, this evening was our third practice. As of yesterday, we have started drumming. It is really hard, but really fun! My legs are so sore! wow... we practice at this open gravel place, kind of like a baseball diamond, but its large like a soccer field. There are lots of people who use it; soccer teams, Yonsei football team (they're funny), random people walking their dogs or just walking/jogging to get exercise. tonight we started out by stretching a bit and then we had to run around the field twice. After that, we split up into our respective groups, based on what instrument one is playing (buk, jangoo, gwengari, and sogo). The walking aspect is what is really difficult for me. First off, I feel like my legs don't quite bend in the way "Korean" peoples legs do. I think if you can do the "asian squat" then you can also do the "poongmul walk." Unfortunately, I can't really seem to do either very well. I guess I'll have to stretch a lot... Your calves have to be really flexible and you have to walk a certain way; bending your knees and going "deep" as they tell me - at the same time you must be graceful, or "flowing." Let me tell you, I am not a flowing person. However, I'm having so much fun! My schedule has becomes completely full for the next two weeks. I can't imagine how the other 떼 tte members do this, with a full course load of difficult classes!!! We practice from 7-10 Monday-Friday, which is actually 6:50-10:20ish. On Saturdays I have my other drumming, on Sunday we practice from 1-6, and the next two Monday's are holiday's and I thought I heard someone say we're going to practice all day on those days! After each practice, we sit in a circle and have a debriefing session. The sangswae announces a instrument which works like sections, and the people who play it take turns talking and reflecting on practice that day. The normal order is sogo, buk, jangoo, and gwengari. It adds about fifteen to twenty minutes to the end of our practice, so really we don't get done until 10:15 or so, but I really like that get time to reflect what we've learned. People actually put thought into it and some talk quite a bit. I really can't see this happening in America, especially with such a large group (off the top of my head I'd say 25ish people)I think it's very useful exercise, plus, I get to practice my Korean. (I try to say new things, but it generally includes the words hard, tiring, and fun.)

Drinking Milk, Chasing Geishas and Sakura in the Spring Time aka Japan

Sorry I haven't updated in quite a while... I got back lastnight from a four day trip to Osaka, Nara, and Kyoto. It was AWESOME. Japan is so cool! and SOOOO expensive!!! CIEE went on a tour with a tour group though an agency; my first trip of this kind. I've never been on an organized tour before. I'm not sure I like it, but I must say it was quite entertaining.. We landed in Kansai Intl Airport on Friday noon and met our Japanese tour guide, Guchi San. Her name sounds like Gucci. hahaha! So, we had Suzanne, our Resident Director, or basically our CIEE person, Sue, the Korean tour guide who I guess booked our flights?... I wasn't real sure on her purpose of being there, and I'm still not. She couldn't speak Japanese, and our Japanese tour guide could speak English, so... There were four other adults on our tour who were just random other people. Most or all of them are currently working in Korea. Coincidentally, one of the ladies teaches English here and had just met with Shirley, a fellow member of Shinparam a few days prior to our trip. What a small world. We ate lunch in a restaurant in the airport and then headed out to our tour bus and drove a good two hours to Kyoto. I tried to stay awake but I ended up falling asleep. I had/have a cold, so the timing of our trip wasn't the greatest for me. In Kyoto we went to some temple and got to run around and take pics. It was really pretty. We were really luck because we were in Japan during the cherry blossom or sakura season! We missed the prettiest part, but they were still there. We got to stay in a traditional Japanese in that night, which was awesome! We slept on tatami mats which smelled nice. The actually bedding was pretty similar to the traditional Korean bedding - nice and comfy! They gave us cool yukata robes which we all decided we ought to wear to dinner. Dinner was interesting.... It was A LOT of seafood and A LOT of raw fish, both of which I am not a fan of. However, I tried to be open minded and I tried EVERYTHING! (Sarang, you should be proud of me) Even a whole baby squid which inked in my mouth when I started chewing... eeew.

yup, I ate one of those buggers... it inked in my mouth which was an odd sensation.

In total, we had about nine different dishes (not all shown in this pic) and desert. It was kinda fun to watch other people eat and dare each other. Anyhow, that night my friends and I went out and walked around town. We were all a bit sick, so we opted not to go the bar with our other friends. Instead we hunted for geishas. We actually saw some! I didn't get any good pics though. There was a whole mob of tourists (foreigners and Japanese!!) standing in front of one of the houses waiting for this geisha to come out. I think she eluded us though and went out a back door or something... It was really quite disgusting how we were all standing there (about 20 people) with our cameras out and ready... my friend got a good shot earlier that day, so I'm stealing it and putting it up here. Oh, we also saw the Cherry Blossom Dance performed by the maikos and gaikos which was really pretty. I liked that you could see the instruments on the side being played. The next day we went around and saw the Silver and Golden Pavillions amonst other things. Our tour guides were hillarious! They had this extendable/retractable metal stick which had hot pink ribbons tied to the top which they would wave around in the air. Guchi San, the Japanese women, although small, walked SOOO fast! So she was always light years ahead of us and all we could see was this small pink ribbon bobbing up and down. The Korean lady, Sue seemed to be ina bit of a power struggle with Guchi San and kept wanting to take over, although she couldn't because she didn't know where we were going. The one time Guchi San got held back Sue gladly took lead. When we got to a fork in the road she turned to Suzanne, our program director and was like "What Way!?" hahaha. Another time, we were leaving a restaurant after lunch and Sue decided it was her turn to hold the stick. (she was a bit aggressive and kinda crazy...) She walks over to Guchi San and says, "Wheres the stick!?" (when she talked she tended to yell) Guchi San looked slighly alarmed and quietly said, "You have it. Its in your pocket." Sue goes, "Oh! Oh! Ok. Ok." and kind of sheepishly pulls it out of her pocket. Also, whenever Guchi San would give us information or direction, like please be back at the bus by 3:30, Sue would feel the need to repeat it yelling. Example: Guchi San: Okay, here are your tickets. The washroom is to the right. Sue: THE WASHROOM IS TO RIGHT! Guchi San: Please be back here in one hour, one hour. 3:30. Sue: ONE HOUR! THREE THIRTY!

Sue and Rex. He just kind of walked behind her and posed.

I was feeling pretty sick the second day, so it really wasn't that fun for me, unfortunately. We went to some really cool places though. Here are some pics of various temples/shogun houses etc. We also went to Nara to see the Korea town there. The area we went to has a large Korean population and we were supposed to learn a bit about the Korean diaspora to Japan. Koreans are currently the largest foreign population in Japan, but will soon be out numbered by Chinese. We talked to a Prof. from Kansai University who is a cultural anthropologist and specializes in the Korean Diaspora in Japan. There is a lot stigma attached to being Korean living in Japan. Japan has the law of jus sanguinis (unlike America which has the law of jus soli) meaning, that if your parents are Korean, even if you were born in Japan, you are still considered Korean, not Japanese. The professor (his name is Jeffry T. Hester) told us about one instance that happened about two years ago. Someone fell into the subway tracks and the only person who jumped in to save him was a Korean/Japanese person, who save the fallen person, but ended up getting killed. So, apparently all the news papers were saying what a shame it was that no Japanese person was willing to risk their life and how great the Koreans must be because the Korean/Japanese person willingly helped. (this is a really bad re-telling of the story. Sorry - keep in mind these are collective societies). Interestingly, many of the Korean people in Japan are from Jeju-do, which is an island south of the tip of Korea. Here is a pic of a restaurant that obviously has connections to Jejudo . Also, we found out that there is kind of a divide between the Korean people in Japan. Most have an affiliation with North or South Korea. I thought he just meant that they had family living there or something, but we walked by this school that has North Korean ties and he told us the last time he was in there, there were pictures of Kim Jung-Il and Kim Il-Sung as well as the North Korean flag hanging up in there. Interesting, right? That evening we ate at a Korean restaurant in Korea town. What a relief!!! I don't think I've ever missed Korean food so much. I also kind of concluded on this trip that I don't particularly like Japanese food. There are certain foods that I really like, but as a whole, not so much... I'd say I gave it a more then fair shot though. Mostly, I think I don't like the flavors which are much more subtle then Korean. Osaka was really fun. We stayed right in the center, so there was lots of lights and lots to do! The first night we were there we didn't do a whole lot because we got back from Nara kinda late. We did go out and got ice cream. I had green tea sundae which came with rices cakes and a chestnut on top. Other people got sweet potato pie sundaes and some delicious strawberry one. The second night we had the whole night to ourselves. We went out and had dinner at a ramen house. I actually couldn't eat Japanese ramen because the noodles have eggs, but... There were some Japanese guys sitting at the table next to us and they started hitting on one of our friends, who they though looked like some famous Korean actress. It was funny because one of the girls studied abroad in Japan during high school and was interpreting the whole conversation, but they guys didn't really seem to catch on?.... it was entertaining, none the less.

...sadly, it rained...

We also went to this palace in Nara which is known for having deer that roam around freely. They were cute, but looked really really dirty... I didn't feed them, but I did take pics with them. Here are some pics from various temples/palaces we went to. *worlds largest bronze buddha *the golden pavillion As far as fashion goes, I would say there is much more variety and its much more eclectic then Korea. However, there was still the majority fashion which seemed to be dyed (lightened to a light brown color) hair, HEAVY eye make-up (probably to make their eyes look larger), short skirts and shorts, pretty conservative on their shirts though. The girls talk in this really high pitched nasily voice on purpose because they think it sounds attractive. When we went out for a bit to eat a bunch of the girls were mocking the voices saying things like sumi masen while pinching their noses and talking in really high voices. It was pretty funny, except they were doing it in a restaurant surrounded by Japanese girls... awkward. Anyhow, thats all I can really think of at the moment. Hope you enjoyed that very long post.

Update

Saturday 3/22 I went to Samulnori lessons in the morning. I met this cool lady who is here on a fullbright to do research on ethnomusicology and what types of music are used in Korea dramas. I told her that I was taking a class on hallyu (the Korean popculture wave that has spread throughout asia) and she got all excited and actually came to our class later that week! I went to noraebang with some of the kids from my Korean class. They were all super into it. I don't really like singing alone, but they were from Japan and Singapore, so we didn't really any mutual songs. too bad. : ( I went to the Hyundai Dept. store with my friend for dinner. We got pizza, which was pretty good and expensive... Afterwards, I bought a dress on impulse. Its so unlike me, plus, its so unlike me to even buy a dress. I didn't even see myself in it... but my friend Vianey said it looked nice. However, I tried on the white one and then decided to get the black one. When I got back I tried the dress on and it didn't fit!!! Now, I need to figure out how to return/exchange it... Later some of my friends and I went to Dongdaemun to go shopping. It was pouring rain outside though, so it wasn't that fun. A lot of the shops are indoors, but still... all the vendors are outside. I think I hit three people with my umbrella and I got stuck between a vendor and the wall... I thought if I kept walking my umbrella could squeeze through; not true. It was a wet night. Sunday 3/23 Happy belated Easter to those of you who celebrate Easter! I was going to go with my friend Vianey to a Spanish speaking church, just to check it out, but it turned out the service was much later than we though. I was supposed to meet my Language Buddy, but she never showed up. My phone ran out of minutes, so I couldn't call or receive any texts. Later when I reacivated it I found six text messages from her... oops! I waited outside (but under an awning) for an hour and then left. Man was cold out! Monday 3/24 nothing exciting that I can recall Tuesday 3/25 Pang and I met up with our former classmate (we all took Korea together last summer at the University of MN) and friend Kaitlin. We had donkasu for lunch and then went to Angel-In-Us-Coffee after. (the name makes absolutely no sense). I had a pumpkin latte. Very interesting... You know how in the states pumpkin is full of spices etc.? I don't really like that, but this was basically straight up pumpkin pure with milk. It was interesting; there were nuts in it too, and when I got to the bottom there was a whole chunk of pumpkin. Later, after class, we went to our poongmul meeting. We got these free facemasks that some org. was handing out at the subway station, so later that night we got really silly and pretended we were ninjas... we got yelled at by other casaville residents because we were being to loud in the hallway. oops! Wednesday 3/26 I had class from 11-12 and then I went to lunch with my language exchange partner SungEun. We had shabu shabu!!! yum! It only cost W6,000 and included ice cream for dessert! Then we took sticker pictures, which was really fun. It only gives you a certain amount of time for each pictures, and then decorating, so we kept running out of time. Then Emily, Pang, and I went to get our haircut. There is a hair salon below InKAS in EeDae where adoptees can get a free haircut. I think we should have gone with someone who spoke Korean though... I do NOT like my hair cut. Afterwards, I freaked out. I was so bitter!!! At least it was free. Pang and Emily's hair cuts turned out really well. I just wanted a trim and then my bangs cut. I tried to tell them how to cut it and the lady was like 이상해 ... (weird...) Really it wasn't. All I wanted was what half the female Korean population has; side bangs. She obviously did not understand... So she cut them and then, I tried to tell her I didn't really like it and so she came back and razored them! which made them way worse. Basically she cut them too short, and there is nothing I can do about that except, let them grow back out. They washed, cut, dried, cut, dried, and curled my hair. It took so long we missed class... oops! Another lady curled my hair with a straightener which totally fascinated me. But my hair wasn't cooperating, and it kept getting bigger and bigger! the lady kept adding hairspray and trying to re-curl it, but eventually she just gave up. Afterwards, I was so sad about my hair I ditched the rest of class and dragged Pang to InsaDong with me. haha. Thursday 3/27 I finally met my language buddy (I have two through two diff. programs). Her name is MinSeo and shes a freshman. It was really funny because Korean school year is opposite from ours. So, this is their first semester, and our second semester. So, really this girl has only been at Yonsei as long as I have. Went went to lunch and had BoriBap (like bibimbop but with barley. it was really good!) Afterwards we were walking around campus a bit and she was so fascinated with everything. It was really funny and cute! Later Emily, Pang, our friend Ryoma, and I thought we had poongmul club. Turns out the meeting was cancelled because there was a school wide protest/demonstration against the school administration against raising tuition etc. So, we just messed around with the instruments and I showed them some of the beats the group is playing. Then one of the members came in to the ttaebang and invited us to go out with them. I guess all the Yonsei poongmul groups rented out a restaurant. All the new leaders for each group had to drink soju out of a big bowl. The bowl was passed around table to table and people could add whatever they wanted to it (salt, twedgigoki, onions, garlic, milk, radish etc.) We all thought this was very amusing. Little did we know, this was similar to what would happened to us this past weekend. haha. Friday 3/28 I went to Sarang's parents house! I think there was a misunderstanding, because I tried to tell them I had class til 6, but I think they thought I was going to arrive at 6. So, her dad called me right as I was walking out of class. oops! I takes me about 25 min. to walk back to my place from school. I grabbed my bag and ran out to the subway station. About two stops later I realized I left my phone back in my room... So I had to go back and get it. Sarang's parents live about 18-20 stops away, so it takes quite a while. The line splits too, which Sarang told me about, but I didn't really understand it, until it split... So I ended up on the other side! I asked these two women who looked to be in their mid-twenties if they spoke English and could help me. They told me what to do and eventually I got there!!! yay! I saw Sarang's parent's new building. Its so nice! There is a restaurant (where we ate dinner at) on the first floor and then office space and the top two floors are theirs. They house is so cool! Everything is automatic. (Sarang, I took a bunch of pics for you). The next day, we took a drive though the country. I think they wanted to show me the spring flowers, but it was raining, so we didn't really see any... too bad. It was fun though!