UPDATE: Daegu, Daejon, Nanta and the likes...

Quick update.

DAEGU

Two weeks ago my friend Emily and I went to Daegu and Seongju. Turns out both of our birthmoths' are from the same town, Seongju, which is outside of Daegu (Korea's third largest city). We decided to take a day trip to save money on lodging etc. so we left at 5:30 am and got back to Seoul at 10:30 pm. It was really fun! we took the Saemaeul train (one of the slower, cheaper trains) down to Daegu and then a bus to Seongju. We got to Daegu and couldn't figure out how to get to Seongju! We walked out of the subway exit and saw a long line of idol taxis but no buses. I walked up to one of the taxi drivers to see where to catch a bus. He told us that it was better to take a taxi because the buses didn't go to Seongju very frequently and we would have to wait a while. While he was talking to us, all the other taxi drivers crowded around us; we were surrounded by 10 middle aged men, all telling us their opinions and arguing with each other. haha. We ended up taking a taxi. Our taxi driver drove so fast! Like a Seoul taxi driver, but we were on windy country roads and there was actually space for him to get somewhere! Yikes! We got to Seongju and the driver dropped us off at the Civil Affairs building... I don't know why. We were both feeling pretty car sick after the ride, so we plopped down on the side of the steps. I'm sure we looked odd - Emily sprawled out and me sitting there in a daze. After a while we got up and wandered around. There really isn't much there. We ended up eating at the same restaurant that I ate at with Mom and Sarang two years ago! (same table too!) After lunch we decided we'd explored enough and decided to head back to Daegu. We bought our bus and tried to figure out which bus was our; there were two buses back. The bus driver figured out we were foreigners and told us to wait for the other bus. When that bus arrived he told the driver where we wanted to go. How nice! There were also two halmonis (grandmas) who were really intent on helping us. They were so sweet! but I had no idea what they said. While we were on the bus I offered them some Choco Pies. So, Em and I were sitting on the bus minding our own business (we were both writing stuff) and all of a sudden the two grandmas and the bus driver start talking, pointing telling us to get off the bus. We were so caught off guard, we grabbed our stuff and ran off the bus. As the bus pulled away, we were like "wait, where are we???" They had misunderstood and thought we wanted to go to the subway station... We actually just wanted to go to the main part of Daegu to look around.

...we got a little lost...

They dropped us off in a suburbish area of Daegu at the end of the subway line. We stood there where the bus had dropped us off for a good five minutes while Emily finished writing her letter and just looking around until this lady who had been riding the same bus as us came up and pointed us in the right direction. We ended up taking the subway into downtown Daegu and then we wandered around there for a while. It was really fun! We were seriously impressed by how clean everything was! The subway station was empty and immaculate! It was a good day.

DAEJON

Two Saturdays I went to Daejon to visit our family friends, the Kim family. I went after my samulnori classes because it was my last class before our final performance, so I felt like I ought to go. I took the bus from Seoul to Daejon. It was really nice to see them! and really fun. Danny, their son who is my age was home for summer vacation, so we hung out. We went to dinner, watched TV, took a walk, ate breakfast, and lunch. I ate so much! haha. We went to this really weird restaurant that had lots of odd rocks, fossils, sculptures, and a mini pirate ship?... It was just really nice to chill and relax. It was funny because before bed Sunny, the mom, asked me what time I normally get up in the morning. I didn't want to seem really lazy, so I underestimated a little and said 8:30ish... I didn't want to seem like a slug or something, because I was the guest. But she told me, "we sleep til 10, so please get up at 10." In my head I was like "YES!!!" I was so happy. I think I got 11 hours of sleep that night! it was wonderful.

NANTA

Last week I finally got to see the Nanta Performance!!! It is a non-verbal performance using cooking utensils and is extremely famous in Korea. Its been running for over 10 years! It was so cool! They use samulnori and poonmgulnori rhythms and beat them out with knives, brooms, cooking pots and pans etc. It was so awesome. I recognized a lot of the beats too! I think my favorite part was the ending. They used Sang-mo hats (the ribbon hats) under a black light to that they showed up in florescent orange and green! It was pretty sweet looking.

SAMULNORI PERFORMANCE

Last Saturday was my final performance for my Samulnori class. It went pretty well and was lots of fun! As I've said in previous entries, I've been taking Saturday samulnori classes at the National Center for the Korean Traditional Performing Arts. We played YongNam, which Shinparam, the MN group also plays. So, it wasn't a new piece, but the way we played had some differences, which I kept messing up on because I was used to something different! I couldn't keep straight which variations I was supposed to play for this piece, and I kept playing things that we play in our MN version... I managed to playing it through correctly for the first time during our performance; whew! My friend was in the beginning gayageum class and she did a great job! She got to wear a pretty hanbok and we wore samulnori chibok.

HAGGLING

This past week my friends and I went to TechnoMart to try and buy electronic dictionaries. They are pretty pricey, but one of our other friends had bought one there for a decent price after haggling quite a bit with the salesperson. We spent over an two hours walking around going stall to stall checking and comparing prices, and haggling. We finally ended up with three dictionaries (I need to buy one for my neighbor). I got back and realized the menus did not change into English... Gr... I want them to change so it would be easier to use. So the next day we went back and spent another hour there haggling with the salesman trying to get a decent deal for different dictionaries. Apparently, only the more expensive ones switch to English. How unfortunate! We finally wore the guy down enough, and ourselves that we struck a deal! yay!!! It was the most haggling I've done this entire trip. I tried to look and sound really nice and cute and desperate.