Seoul sojourn - lots of pictures (click to see full size!)

That's me, on the roof! This is the view from Kyle and Charisa's apartment in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do, Seoul.

This past weekend (the weekend of September 15-16th) we went on a trip to Goyang in Seoul to visit some friends from college that came here about 6 months before we arrived. They also attended the same college we went to and we both had classes with Charisa (anthropology, woohoo). Our conversations with them first started back in February when they had first arrived in South Korea and that's when we started our own process and now here we are. We were finally able to come see them in Seoul!

We started our trip by bus kind of late due to Zach still working at the school teaching adult classes later in the evening. Our boss took me to go pick him up and she helped us get bus tickets. We were going to try to get into the Gangnam Express Bus Station, but were informed that the buses to the Gangnam station were no longer running for the night (it was about 9pm by this point). Instead we ended up taking the bus to Nambu Station which is not far from the Gangnam station. So we were ushered onto the bus by our boss, instructed to fasten our seatbelts (I'll get pictures sometime, they're interesting), and hugged. Then she even decided to go next to the bus and wave as we were leaving... it's okay other mom, we'll be alright.

So then we were on the bus for about an hour and a half and the ride was really pretty. I wish I had taken some pictures, but we just ended up chatting on the way there. The bus ride is cheap too, we made it up to Seoul for only 7,400 won which is pretty nice.

Having called Kyle and Charisa beforehand to let them know we'd be going to a different bus station, they met us there at the terminal and I was probably way too excited, but I couldn't help it. It's just so exciting to see familiar faces. Again, there was that sense of everything being so very foreign since we were in a city that wasn't our own, so it took some adjusting.

Seoul has an amazing metro system though and that's how we got back to Kyle and Charisa's apartment. We had hand me down T-Money cards for the subway system that we just loaded (more) money onto and then we were good to go.

We were just further down on the orange line which was good for us because that's the line we needed to get back to their apartment. So we hopped on and stood or sat (depending on opportunity) and rode the hour or so back to their place. The traffic picked up on the subway as we progressed through busier parts of Seoul and then dispersed as we got further away and closer to Goyang. Finally we reached the end (well, near the end of the orange line, there were a couple more stops) and got off and went to go have dinner. 

Dinner was at a small local place and we shared an entree and a salad with fruit. They also had these puffed rice snack-y things that are like small tubes and dried seaweed strips with some soy sauce. I may have made the seaweed disappear. Having mentioned sharing, that's just what you do here. You're going out for a meal? You order several things and everyone shares. This is my kind of place. The chicken/shrimp we had was delicious and the salad was a pineapple salad with fruit including kiwi, some mozzarella balls, and small tomatoes. We also had kiwi soju which was essentially soju with kiwi juice. It was really good. That said, I've been informed that soju by itself is terrible, but with things you don't even know it's there which is why it's so dangerous. The Koreans are good at drinking. That reminds me of something else to, we saw this incredibly smashed lady being held up by a man and a woman outside of the restaurant we were at. She was so gone she couldn't stand up and just crumpled to the ground without support. Hurray drinking culture?

After dinner we walked up to their apartment which is a small building sandwiched between many others. Since it was probably closer to 1am at this point we decided that talking and catching up was the best route and finally settled in to sleep at 3am or so. We talked about living in South Korea, their plans, grad school, Zach and Charisa talked anthropology and classmates while Kyle and I talked games and life in college. 

 It was good, plus we got to meet their pet snails. Then we finally did that sleeping thing (yes, I know I mentioned that above).

The next day Kyle had to run out to take care of something in the morning and we slept kind of late, but we went out to get breakfast with Charisa and wander around Goyang. First things first though, we went up and took pictures on the roof!

After taking some time on the roof we finally decided to go get breakfast and walked through a really neat local market. I wish I had my camera because it was so very interesting. We did see some cool things that I did get a quick picture with though.

Kyle made it back to the apartment before we had, so we just hung out for a while and they showed us their pet snails (for a Dream Science project at school) and then we decided to head out and go exploring. First things first were lunch and stopping at the iPark mall. In order to do that though, it was back onto the metro!

We did some line hopping from the orange line to a few others to get where we needed to go. The metro system is interesting because in order to figure out if your train is coming you need to listen and know which way you're headed. Trains heading in to Seoul have accompanying music that sounds like a happy trumpet march when you know your train is close. The other one, which is harder to explain, is more mellow and that indicates that the train coming is one that is headed away from Seoul. 

As a side note, the subways were interesting, there were ads everywhere and on one of the ones with video there was an ad for the new World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria. There were also ads for some super anime game which I assume is for your smart phone. Speaking of phones too, everyone on the subway is either reading, listening to music, watching a show on their phone, playing on their phone, texting, or some combination of the former. 

Then we got lunch! It was delicious and they make it right in front of you. 

There was so much food, we didn't finish it all by any means. 

After that we began our trek to the iPark mall which is close, but not close enough that we avoid the subway, so subway it was. The iPark mall is huge and confusing and you can probably find anything you could ever need there. There is a map and the map is even confusing. While picking our way around we passed by the cosmetics and purses and designer clothing (I saw ads with Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio in one store). After failing to get where we needed to go we left the building and went in somewhere else and got to the more interesting part of the mall. 

We had been discussing computers the night before and the fact that Charisa had gotten a really nice computer from the iPark mall and got a really good price since you can haggle and get them to drop the price down. Well, SOMEONE, I won't name names, decided it was a good idea to get one for me. An elaborate (okay, not that elaborate) scheme was hatched to keep me busy while SOMEONE and Charisa went to get the computer for me and Kyle took me around the mall. 

In the end I was given a really nice computer (so now we can play games together when it gets cold and miserable out since mine was on its way out) and we had a good time at the mall. At least I got a nice tour of the mall while we were exploring! You can get married on the 6th floor and then go to a Starcraft tournament on the 7th floor! We went outside onto the roof from the 7th floor and checked out the view. 

This is the courtyard of the iPark mall. The place seriously has everything.

Then, with laptop in tow (with some cool extras) we hopped back on the subway so we could make it to the Han River trail so we could watch the water show on on of the bridges once it got dark out. 

Off we went! Little did we know that we would meet a super cute dog whose owner was really nice. She liked us a lot for whatever reason. 

That's Seoul Tower on that smaller hill. 

She had recently gotten a new camera, so we were out taking pictures.

The view on the Han River trail is gorgeous.

The lighting is weird, but I love this picture!

Taking a picture of Zach taking a picture of Charisa taking a picture of the sunset. 

Then we decided to keep walking further down the trail, closer to the bridge where the show would take place. There were lots of people around and some had tents where they were just hanging out. There were some kites in the sky since it was so nice near the river. We discovered that we could get a kite of our own, so we did!

Kyle and I were experts (haha) so we decided to teach Zach and Charisa our mad kite skills. We also hatched a plan to open a kite shop with a few additional stores. 

Kite master!

Yes, that blur is Zach trying to capture the kite. 

After that we decided to wait for the show and went to one of the lookouts near the river. It was surprisingly cool and the temperature dropped pretty fast. 

The view of Banpo Bridge (above) and Jamsu Bridge (below). The two bridges connect Yongsan and Seoncho districts.  When there's flooding Jamsu Bridge is closed and all the traffic goes on the Banpo Bridge instead.

After the show we started walking toward Itaewon which is the big foreign district (with the army base nearby and all) to stop for something to eat for dinner. On the way though we saw some really interesting graffiti. 

Anyway, we walked to Itaewon and grabbed dinner at this small pub which had American food and was kind of cute. They played popular music from a variety of time periods. We were going to go check out the red light district but decided not to since we had a train to catch in order to get back to Goyang. 

Speaking of the train, we realized we were running out of time to catch the train back to Goyang, so we had to rush. We were counting down the stops until we could get off and change train lines and we were worried we would miss it and have to take the bus which is complicated. So what did we do? We decided that we needed to run. We hopped off the train as soon as the doors opened and ran up several flights of stairs, up an escalator, around a few corners and... we got extremely lucky. The metro, which is usually on time and very precise, was a few minutes/stops late, so we didn't even need to run. Charisa had said that we scared some other people into running, actually. By the way, I was dead last. 

This is one of the advertisements for a game. We looked at the picture and it really makes no sense.

Fortunately we hopped on our train and settled in for the 45 minute trip back to the apartment. We finally returned and we started getting the new computer set up and they decided it was time to walk the snails. 

After listening to some music, some snail walking, and relaxing it was time for bed again after the long day. We decided that we would leave the following day after grabbing breakfast. We attempted to leave from the Gangnam Express station again, but couldn't find it and just ended up leaving from Nambu Station. We grabbed Burger King for lunch since it was right there anyway (it was deeelicious) and then waited for our 12:30pm bus to arrive and take us back to Cheongju. 

We started getting some rain on the way back since it was part of the outer rings of one of the typhoons, but we otherwise made it back safely, if a bit soggy. Since we didn't have much to eat at the apartment we stopped at a small store, grabbed some food, and then headed back to relax. 

We had a good time and we're definitely looking forward to visiting Seoul again!

Happy almost Chuseok!

They were all so excited this morning! That's James at the table and Julia and Stella twirling around the room.

Things have been busy and not lately, so updates have been slow. Chuseok (which is like Korean thanksgiving) is coming up on Sunday, September 30th and so we are going to have a 5 day weekend in which I am hoping to do some major updates. The pictures in my camera need to be uploaded! I also need to do a recap of our trip to Seoul, which Zach talked about, but I haven't done so yet.

Anyway, the above picture is from this morning when the girls came to school dressed in their traditional hanboks. They had run up to the second floor and were yelling "Man teacher!", trying to get my attention up on the third floor. Not being dressed yet or anything, I hopped out of my pjs and into clothes and went downstairs. I heard Zach talking to them downstairs while I was getting ready and he just said "awwww, you guys are soooo cute!" and then I finally went downstairs to see for myself.

Both of our classes were decked out in hanboks today and they were so adorable. They seem much less complicated than Japanese kimonos, and I think I like them better too. I took tons of pictures today though, so along with the trip pictures and others from recent events they should be going up in posts in the next few days.

In other news, we just got back from our quick trip to HomePlus which was absolutely packed with people shopping for food and gifts for Chuseok. We accomplished our mission of acquiring some alcohol and other miscellaneous food items since places will be closed for a couple of days.

Long overdue post

Hey there to all 10ish of you who read this blog, I figured I'd finally make a post since it has been a while. This past weekend we spent in Seoul with our friends Kyle and Charisa.  They are the ones who actually helped us get on this crazy adventure is Korea-land.  After I finished my adult classes on Friday night Amanda and our school director picked me up and whisked us away to the bus terminal.  We were to get on the 9pm bus to Nambu station in Seoul.  The director was a little overbearing, actually getting on the bus with us to make sure we found our seat correctly.  It was a nice gesture, but made me feel like I was 5 years old. She then stood outside the window of the bus and just stood there waving until we left a few minutes later, it was a bit unnerving.

The view from Kyle and Charisa's roof

The bus ride was actually really pleasant,  Amanda and I talked about our experiences in Korea so far, having a lot of positive and a few negative experiences. While this job will indeed be one where we work for the weekend, at least the weekends will be AMAZING.  We arrived in Nambu station and met up with our friends, and they introduced us to the city of Seoul.  We made our way to the subway (right next door to the bus terminal) and we loaded money onto our T-Money cards.  Then we were well on our way to Goyang.

The subway was a nice ride, relaxing and pretty dead but I was too wired to sit for the hour long ride.  After arriving in Goyang we ate at a Korean restaurant, and went back to their apartment to relax for the rest of the evening.

SHARK

The next day we woke up around 10, and walked to get pastries from some places close to Charisa's apartment.  It was yumtastic, and after a shot hang out time in their apartment we headed off once again for Seoul.  Our goal was to walk along the Han River, there are trails and parks along the way and it is beautiful.    We also stopped at some place for food, which was very yummy and spicy, although I don't have a picture nor do I have a name for what we ate.  So it will be a mystery unless Amanda decides to post about it.

Walking trail on the Han River

We then went to the iPark Mall which is....a mall.  It is pretty damn big with 7 floors dedicated to electronics, and the best part is that you can haggle the prices down on a lot of the items so you can get a pretty good deal.  Like saving 140 dollars on a laptop!!!

At the river we had a very good time walking.  It was interesting to see that people are allowed to camp down by the river without getting bugged by Johnny Law, or get murdered in the middle of the night.  There was also a convenience store which had some food if we had wanted to eat.  Kyle bought a kite and we flew it like a god damn kite flying machine.

Amanda admiring the scenery

There was also a bridged that peed.  I think it drank too much juice.

After that we hopped on the subway to head to the foreigner district.  Itaewon was full of foreigners of all varieties.  While we were there we did a quick pass by the red light district, and "homo hill," before settling in at a Canadian Pub.  It was nice having some good western food, one of my biggest problems even though everything is spicy around here there are no Buffalo Wings for me to gorge myself on.  So we ordered some wings, and a burger and other delicious delicious honkey food.

The water spraying bridge at sunset

Overall the weekend was great, and we're lucky to have good friends.  We're hoping to get visitors soon, even though we've only been here (about) a month it has felt like forever, which is both good and bad.  We shall see how it goes in the future!

Obligatory K-pop post

I have decided to post some K-pop videos and songs that I actually find at least moderately appealing. I also feel obligated to post Psy's "Gangnam Style" because it's just become so popular lately. If you haven't heard "Gangnam Style" then it's really just a matter of time anyway. We were actually on the metro over the weekend in Seoul (in Gangnam) and I overheard someone near a stop by the Gangnam Express Bus Station mention it.

Then there's this song/video by NU'EST which I stumbled upon while browsing Korean music on YouTube, but I like it. It's your typical boyband fare over here. The song is called "Action". I probably like them more than I should.

Then you have "Electric Shock" by f(x) which I hear everywhere, all the time. It plays on the radio, when you're walking downtown Cheongju, when we were at the I'Park Mall in Seoul. It never leaves. On the first day we shadowed, when there was the monthly birthday party, the 4 older girls did the dance from the video as their little performance. You cannot escape "Electric Shock".

Finally (for now anyway), I leave you with another popular singing group, Sistar. This song is called "Alone" and it's really started to grow on me after I heard it a lot. Again, I've heard it on the radio, in the car on a CD that our director has, etc. 

Health check, banking, and immigration in South Korea (Cheongju anyway)

This was the only shot that I got of the hospital we visited for the health check. Sorry it's blurry!

I realized earlier in trying to get my thoughts organized that we've missed several important things to discuss about our arrival. Shortly after we arrived in South Korea, a week after we had just arrived here, our boss took us to the hospital to have our health checks completed. Despite knowing what was going to be done I was still all nerves because of the fact that I'm not a huge fan of hospitals and I've never had blood drawn. 

Why the extensive health check process? Well, South Korea wants to make sure that you don't have any diseases you can pass along to the kids you're teaching (or adult students, whatever age you may be teaching). So they check you for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, drug use, extensive alcohol use, hepatitis, etc. and then shuffle you onward to immigration once you pass the rigorous exam. Having said that, if you do have one of the above, you will not be able to teach because Korea is very protective like that. 

Nerves aside, it was a pretty quick process. We had to take additional passport pictures with us (if you ever come to Korea, bring extras, they are extremely useful) and fill out some paperwork first. Our director isn't very clear with explanations since her English is okay, but not great, so we filled out two forms first and she had us fill in the wrong blanks and she ended up rewriting it anyway. We were slightly irritated because the health checks were 68,000 won each and she didn't forewarn us so we didn't have enough, so she ended up paying for them (only to have the money taken from our paychecks later). 

After the paperwork was submitted we were sent upstairs to immediately have our blood drawn. Zach did fine, but after they drew the two vials I got light headed and they stumbled me into a room with a small bed so I could rest. Once my head stopped spinning it was time to pee in a cup and then move on to the next thing. We were then sent down a hallway and had chest x-rays done (it's fun standing awkwardly against a plastic box), blood pressure check, had our height and weight checked, and had our vision checked. Then we were free to go and were shuffled onward by the director to the bank.

We went to our bank KB* and spent some time filling out more paperwork. This surprised me because I thought that you had to actually have your health check done and have your alien immigration card before you could open bank accounts, but I guess that's not the case. So we filled out the paperwork and were issued these small booklets and assigned 2 PIN numbers to them so we can withdraw and deposit cash. It's an interesting process. All I know is that to withdraw money you use the second option, followed by the second option, and then enter your PINs and choose how much money you want to withdraw. The end. I hope I can remember all that. 

It makes sense to discuss the immigration office too since we went the following day because our health checks had already been completed in that time frame. We were good to go! So our director drove us to immigration in Cheongju and had us start filling out paperwork only to find out that she had left our passports (which she had kept after the health check and bank visit) at the school. So she went to go get them and we stayed and filled out our paperwork. After we got to the point in the paperwork that we couldn't finish without passports we sat down and waited for our number. We arrived at a good time though since a huge group of Chinese college students arrived and were going through right after us. Our director made it back just in time and we got in and she spoke to the lady, we had our fingerprints taken, paid our 10,000 won, and headed back to the school. We were told that it would take 2 weeks for our alien immigration cards to be processed, and we have them now at this point. 

Another handful (thoughts on S.K.)

I decided to try something new with the older girls and so far so good. This ties in with the stickers bit. ^^

Welcome back to the second edition of my thoughts on South Korea! Interspersed with random photos of irrelevant things, of course. That said, this time I will touch on a few things as I make my way down my growing list of observations.

The girls pulling out their sticker books and going through their collections.

1. OMG Stickers! Now, liking stickers isn't a new thing by any means and kids just generally like stickers; they're good rewards, they can be used to achieve better items (sticker charts and the like), you can stick them in awful places and have trouble getting them off, the list just goes on and on. So yes, there is the general appeal of stickers to youngins, but I feel like it's a bigger deal here. It was really interesting to me when we first got here that the older girls would just take out their sticker collection books and go through them or trade, etc. They have stickers of everything, from food to cute characters (i.e. Porororo) and everything else. The girls like to share them and give them to us, so Zach and I both have small sticker collections on the back of our phones. Mine has a cake, ice cream cone, a small bee, a bear, the fox character from Porororo, and a rice ball or "jumeok bap" in Korean. Because they love stickers so much, I've decided to use it against them and make them compete during class for stickers, it's still sort of in the works, but I think I can use it to my advantage. Stickers here are cheap too (₩ 1000, which is less than one USD) and you can find them at a lot of stores, and they're so cute, along with tons of stationary.

Believe it or not, most days these boys aren't happy or sad, they're Angry Birds!

2. Angry Birds (the game/app where you sling birds around with the intention of mowing everything in your way over) is huge here. Not only can you play it on your phone here, but similar to the states, there is Angry Birds stuff everywhere. One girl, Julia, has an Angry Birds pencil case and pencils inside it. James has worn Angry Bird socks to school sometimes. In Seoul when we went to visit our friends I saw a crane game thing with tons of Angry Birds as prizes. All that aside, the reason I wanted to make a note of the Angry Birds is because it's become a sort of morning class ritual in my class for the boys to say that they are Angry Birds today when I ask how they are. I will typically go around the room and ask how my kids are today, sometimes I'll get happy or sick or sleepy, but the 3 or 4 boys always tell me they are Angry Birds! So after I hear that, it's always important to follow through and ask what color. This morning John and Tomas said they were black Angry Birds while James and Michael said that they were blue Angry Birds. Never a dull moment! 

No, we haven't eaten there yet. Western food is more expensive generally.

3. Western food in Korea is an experience, by experience I mean that if you had the option you should probably be eating at your favorite restaurants here instead of back in the States. That said, it is generally more expensive than other types of food you can get whether it's more traditional Korean fare or more modern cuisine (like Rice Story which is amazing). Thus far we've sampled a few Western restaurants including Pizza Hut and Burger King. Pizza Hut here is actually a nice place where people will go on dates, which is kind of cute. The pizza toppings they use here sometimes can be pretty crazy, especially based on what we saw walking by Mr. Pizza and other places. Even Pizza Hut had some odd looking toppings. Zach and I are not huge fans of Pizza Hut at home, but we decided to go and try it and it was actually really good. We got a small cheese pizza and split it (we haven't gotten paid yet!) and drinks and we were able to eat for a little less than $20 USD or (approximately ₩ 20,000). Not the kind of place to go frequently, but it was nice. We also grabbed Burger King in Seoul at the Nambu bus station while we waited for our bus back to Cheongju and it was pretty good too. Fast food is fast food though. At some point we will probably eat at Outback and TGI Fridays, but probably not a lot because of the price. I will now leave you with a few pictures from our Pizza Hut experience.

The Pizza Hut menu, in some ways it's very standard. The cheesy bites fondue pizza is on my list of delicious sounding things to try though. 

I would totally try that, it looks like it may be some sort of bulgogi pizza, I think?

Koreans like to serve pickled something with meals, whether it's pickles or radishes, onions, etc. The pizza was good though, even though we decided to keep it simple.

Typhoon Season

We need to update the blog, but we've been really busy too. New blog entries will be going up within the next day or two.

That said, we're soon going to be pounded pretty hard by Typhoon Sanba which was at one point a Super Typhoon. We've been getting the rain all night and now it's just starting to pick up again. We're hoping for an easy day today with just a few kids instead of everyone.

A handful of thoughts (part 1)

Snacks, those are something to talk about!

I, Amanda, have decided that I am going to start to make posts of ongoing observations regarding life in the school and things we see and just general Korean-isms (if that's even a thing). Why? Because I will hear/observe/interact and run into many things that just make me wonder how and why (and sometimes wtf), so to me they're worth visiting and thinking about. I expect this will be an ongoing thing and should be somewhat interesting (at least for me).

Sarah likes to cuddle and cling!

1. One of the first things I was told once we got here and have observed in action is that Korean children really enjoy close contact and hugging and the normal things a child needs. Perhaps they are even more affectionate because their parents aren't as physically affectionate and from what I understand a lot of Korean children grow up not hearing "I love you" from their parents until they're much older. That said, it's not uncommon for girls and women to be touchy-feely with each other. I also mention it because today I took Sarah downstairs since I had class with the 3rd and 4th grade girls and Sarah (who is only 4 years old) refused to let go of my neck after I picked her up and carried her down. Then you have Stella who is in my kindy class. She was hopping up on my lap earlier and hugging me. There was also Julia who probably hopped on my lap or hugged me and kissed my cheek half a dozen times today (as a note: this is only when she's having a good day and likes me instead of when I have to yell at her all day for not listening) and then later, at the end of the day while waiting for her mom and watching Toy Story 3, she actually pulled my arms around her while she sat in my lap. I find it kind of interesting, and in some ways the showing affection thing ties into food too...

The soup was kind of an egg drop kind of thing, the top left corner is a radish that's kind of spicy, to the right of that is a processed fish patty kind of thing. The rice had bean sprouts in it.

2. So speaking of food, it is a very nuanced thing here. We came in knowing full well that both eating and drinking are highly social, but there's more to that as well. If someone invites you to dinner you can't refuse, that is a huge social no no. That's a topic for another time though, I want to talk about something a little closer to home. By that I mean that everyone around here likes to feed us! Tonight I was sitting downstairs watching a movie with the two that leave the latest and the director comes in to watch with us, then leaves to grab a bunch of snacks and we all sit there and eat. The cook here at the school also gives us way too much food (she's so sweet though!), some of which we're in the process of figuring out what we do and don't like. Since Zach is still kind of hesitant and doesn't eat much, everyone (being the cook and the director, which has been mentioned to both of us multiple times, also by the other teacher) is suddenly worried that he's not eating enough. So he's annoyed, I'm kind of amused, and it's generally an interesting, but funny situation. 

Shinae (downtown), Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea

3. There's a tendency around here to not clean up after yourself and in some cases it's pretty bad. With younger kids I can kind of understand because unless they're taught to clean up after themselves they're not going to do it. The grown ups are another story altogether though. When we went downtown the first time (also known as Shinae-- that's she-nay if you're curious about the pronunciation) I was first impressed with the scenery and all the people as a typical tourist, but then I started noticing smaller details. First thing I really noticed? People would just throw their trash down in the street wherever. We saw a guy just toss down an empty cigarette carton in an alleyway next to someone's doorway. People just left their empty drinks sitting on or near benches. Admittedly, something I noticed after the fact was that there were hardly any trash cans or waste bins anywhere in public places. I put another piece of the puzzle together later when I saw an old woman digging through a trash bag and pulling out plastic bottles. Apparently the middle aged women (called ajummas, (아줌마) middle aged woman is pretty much the translation) clean up the public areas from all the trash and debris. That said, one thing I am taking to heart is working on getting the kindy kids to clean up their messes.

That wraps up the thoughts this time, I have more pondering to do, then I will be back!