추석 Revisited: Adventures in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do

Apologies in advance for writing way too much in this post. I'm still trying to play catch up from Chuseok (better late than never, right??), but will make it my future goal to restrain myself.

Determined to make good use of my precious moments of freedom, I spent the latter half of Chuseok break with some friends gallivanting around Seoul and Gyeonggi-Do, seeing what each had to offer. The following represent our findings. 

Indian food and Kimchi-Cheese Pancakes
And that's about all she wrote. The night before Chuseok, I met up with some friends living in Ansan, a city about halfway between Pyeongtaek and Seoul. We scarfed delicious Indian food and headed out for a night in Ansan. I was once again amazed by Korea's determination to cover every mountable space with neon signs. It's amazing that some (many) areas are actually quite ugly on the surface, but come to life under the dazzling glow of a neon norebang, or two, or forty. The night was pretty low key by Korea standards, but enjoyable nonetheless. It eventually ended with some sort of kimchi-cheese pancake, at a restaurant, which Pat mistook for a bar. This was probably the better decision anyways and the pancake concoction could give a fatty slice of Ian's or PDR a run for it's money, in terms of effective late-night cuisine.

Tourists-Shmourists 
On Chuseok day I went with a handful of English teachers, to Gyeongbuk Palace, the oldest and largest Joseon dynasty compound. Gyeongbuk was my first palace experience, as well as my first super touristy activity since my arrival in the land of the morning clam. There was a traditional changing of the guards ceremony, as well as a small festival featuring traditional Korean "Samul Nori" dancers and acrobats. The child acrobats where amazing, and simple adorable. The palace complex itself was pretty fantastic. The ceilings of each building are supported by hundreds of wooden beams, painted in vibrant  greens, reds, yellows and blues, the only thing more extravagant than the ceilings are the interior spaces,
which add brilliant gold to the effect. I did my best not to hold everyone up, but at times felt the need to camp out on a bench (or the ground) and take everything in. I started a few sketches, and hope to do many more this year. I am definitely realizing how lucky I was to travel Italy and Europe, with 30 other people whose hearts desire it was to sink into a corner and draw/ or write. In the last week or so, I have started to connect with some other arsty-fartsy UW Gepik-ers and we are going to try to check out some artist events, with like-minded people, in the future. The palace group also attempted to go to Changdeok Palace, which is renowned for its beautiful gardens; however, after realizing we would have to pay for a guided tour, wait around an hour, and possibly listen to said guided tour in Japanese, we all decided to save Changdeok for another day.

Seoul Mates: An interesting cultural side note
Once a Korean couple reaches a certain level of serious-ness (cue Bubbie: "Is it serious??"), say 200 days, they often (or always) go out and buy matching outfits. These can range from matching or connecting t-shirts, to full on head to toe twinkies.

After getting our fill of the palaces, Ali, Pat, Brent, Lauren, and I, headed over to Myeongdong in search of some needed electronics, bags, and other such things. Myeongdong is a large shopping district in Seoul and has the potential to be a dangerous place if you have Won burring a hole in your pocket. Sadly/Luckily,  I am approximately eight times the size of the average Korean, and thus will be limited to the glories of Forever 21 and H+M. Although, it is nice to know I don't have to worry about wearing my clothes to rags in a year. After searching around and obvi eating some street food (something that resembled an egg on one side and a pancake on the other), Ali and I happened on the best Korean couples shirts I have see so far; so, naturally, we bought them. Best 10,000 W (8 bucks) I have spent so far. See above right to view the full effect of the connecting heart, cup-phone glory! The crew eventually went our separate ways, with vague ideas of hiking in the next few days.




"You should have seen that sunrise, with your own eyes..."
Ok, it was not a sunrise, it was two sunsets. Kill me, I couldn't help it.
Seeing as I am not living in what you may call a bustling metropolis, my few nights spent at home during Chuseok week were most often spent planning which adventure/activity to do next. After arriving home from an exhausting day of palace hopping, and filling my belly with something delicious, I flopped down on my couch and tried to figure out what to do next. At this point I still did not have a cell phone, so the planning process involved sitting in my glorious corner of wifi, guidebook in lap, and facebook, my only form of contact to those in Korea, on the screen. At around midnight, Ali and I struck gold, with possibly the best idea EVER. After realizing the weather would be absolutely perfect the next few days, we decided to head to Muui-do, or Muui Island, early the next morning. 9 am Seojeong-ri station departure, 6 hours of trains, buses, ferries, and the help of 2 friendly, but slightly confused Koreans later, we arrived. (sidenote: the return trip took a third of the time once we knew what we were doing!) Ali and I played a quick game of charades with the man renting huts, eventually reserving a small hut on the beach for the next two nights. Now, when I say small hut on the beach, I mean exactly that. Ali, Pat, Sam, Brent and I squished ourselves into a 7 foot by 7 foot hut, which was perched on stilts about 50 feet from the Yellow Sea (with the tide in), and equipped with a heated floor, five pillows and five blankets. This ritz-carlton-esque lodging cost us 60,000 won ($52.00) total for both nights, and was worth every fricken penny.

Muui-do is a small Island off the West coast of Korea, and is home to one of the most bizarre natural phenomenon I have ever seen. At around 9 pm the tied starts to go out and then ... it keeps going out.. forever. By midnight it is out over a half a mile, and by the next morning you have to walk 45 min to reach the shoreline. It is totally bizarre, but very cool to walk out on the mud flats, dodging crabs and weird tubers (possibly sea cucumbers?) and watching people dig for clams. At around 3 pm, the tide rolls back in and you can swim in water above your head, a short 50 feet from your hut.

The next 2 days were spent laying on the beach, walking out on the mud flats and eating the freshest sea food I have ever had (grilled clams and seafood pa-jeon [pancakes] right out of the ocean). The second day, Brent and I hiked up to the top of the island and took in a spectacular 270 degree view of green islands and sea, while ignoring the 90 degrees pointing us towards the airport.

There were about 5 other huts or tents of English teachers there at the time; so, after watching two spectacular sunsets, with nothing but the sea and more Islands to the West, both nights were spent relaxing and drinking around communal bonfires. On the second night, the smallness of the world came crashing down on me, when a Korean family joined our festivities. Somewhere in the course of the evening I learned that the patriarch of this family lived in Buffalo Grove for four years! His children even attended Daniel Wright Middle School, while I was learning Algebra over at Twin Groves. Words cannot explain the level of insane shock and coincidence both of us felt at this moment. The man then proceeded to introduce me to every member of his family and, I'm pretty sure, tried to set me up with his far too young, and totally mortified, nephew. Needless to say, my brain exploded; but this, combined with an 8:30 am make-your-eyes-water spicy noodle bowl, was the perfect end to a wonderful week in 한국!


Unfortunately, during this last stretch, my camera fell victim to soju, a lifeguard stand, and the yellow sea. ( I know, I know... stupid, stupid, stupid!!) I have not yet stolen Ali's Muui-do photos, or purchased a new camera. Both issues will be resolved soon; however, now I must simply say "C'est la vie" and appreciate every moment as it happens.  (**All Muui-do photos in the post were jacked from Brent's Blog "Way from Wisconsin"**)

I hope you're either enjoying or ignoring my adventures! I love hearing updates from home and I swear one day I will be on top of the whole more frequent, shorter blog post thing.  As my co-teacher Julie says. , "Ok-Bye-Bye, See you next time!"

Knife Tips and Norebangs

Ok, I know!  I've neglected this a bit and have some catching up to do. Its been a crazy week and I realized that I started this post about 5 days ago, but never finished. I guess I will start at the beginning and bore you all to death, with what I think were some bizarre adventures during the first bit of Chuseok. The later half of my week was a whole different ball game; so, that will have to wait. I am trying not to compete with my Jane Austen reader here...I know you will all be waiting on the edge of your seats.

The first half of this post goes out to my HGTV loving momma and anyone who knows of, and shares my feelings towards knife tips. Hope some of you are reading this because it made me think of you!

My Chusoek vacation started off with a typical rainy Saturday, which spoiled my plans to go exploring and find a temple I want to see in Seoul. Not wanting to feel like a waste of space, I decided to try to be productive, in spite of the weather. Over the last few days, I've started to visit some UW Gepik-ers in their towns and have since realized that the apartment I was given is unusually gigantic. In reality, it's more space than I need, but I guess that's the trade off for living in an area that I sometimes think resembles one big empty storefront.  While my apartment was clean on arrival, and my school provided me with some basic furnishings, it is in serious need of some HGTV lovin.' The lack of any real color (excluding of course my pretty pretty princess bed) has already left me spending far too many precious moments pondering my bare, cream, wallpapered walls. I also narrowly escaped disaster a few days ago, simultaneously stepping on my medicine bottle, rolling my ankle, and nearly crushing my already hurting ipod. Both items had been living on my make-shift bedside table... the floor. Determined, I walked my tush to Homeplus and picked up some much needed items, including: a mirror, a small bedside shelf/table, a small lamp, a bath mat and some garbage cans. I also picked up some cheap frames that I filled with large printed pictures (printed in full color on my office printer, obviously) for the walls. Well these help a bit, the search for colorful, won-friendly wall decor continues.

After returning home very soggy, I was ready to start turning my apt into a home. I spent a few minutes rearranging the furniture in my bedroom, before opening all of my packages and promptly realizing the flaw in my plan. Being the crafty, yet slightly scatter-brained, lady that I am, I had bought a small shelf that needed to be assembled, forgeting that I do not have the screwdriver required to complete such a task. I had already made the decision to stay inside until the rain subsided and thus spent the next hour of my life testing random items in my apartment, to see if I they could be the substitute I knew must exist. 12 nearly stripped screws later, the clouds parted and I found what I was looking for. What could it possibly be?  A KNIFE TIP. I will make an observation here; If I can put together a shelf with the tip of my kitchen butcher knife, I am quite confident that every camper at Beber Camp can make a PB+J without breaking the tip of their knife into the peanut butter jar. I know it.

Feeling as though my apartment was slightly less hospital chic, I set off on adventure number two, meeting up with my friend Amanda in Seoul. What follows are 10 of the most unexpected hours I have had since arriving in Korea. The mere fact that I am meeting up with Amanda in Seoul is amazing to me.  For those of you who don't know, in an wonderful twist of fate, Amanda found Solly's ad for a subletter exactly one week before moving in to 615 N. Henry. When, within about a month of her moving in, we had both separately decided to go to Korea, I think we knew the friendship was meant to be! Anyways... after a 1.5 hour journey on the Subway, spent in between the cutest Korean baby I have ever seen and a very friendly woman who gave me a what I can only describe as a doughnut hole filled with red beans and a walnut, I got off in Hongdae and went to find Amanda. Turns out we were waiting at opposite exits and, seeing as both parties are still phone-less, it took a while to find each other. But, as always, at the end of the day it was worth it!

Highlights of the evening include:

• Accidentally eating something which directly translates to "meaty bones soup" but in reality was a spicy soup made from what appeared to be large chunks of spine
• Getting lost and having to visit two PC Bangs before finding our hostel
• Arriving at the Yellow Submarine Guest House and being told 
• We didn't know you were coming." ("Hey, did you know they were coming??")
•  "The directions from the subway are totally accurate" (no way jose)
• "You can sleep here, but there is a weird guy in your room."
• "We will have to go to the laundry mat (at 11:45 pm) because we sent out all the sheets."
• and, my personal favorite, "Are you girls drunk?"

At this point were were stone sober, but had been dissolving into fits of giggles over the entire situation.
The night progressed from there, eventually ending with some crazy singing, dancing, and drinking of Welch's grape drank in a 노래방 (norebang). A norebang is a Korean karaoke room, found two or three to a street anywhere in the city, or perhaps anywhere in Korea. Korean's love their karaoke and take their norebang-ing pretty seriously. The result is the most intense list of options I have ever seen which, if you're lucky, include thousands of Korean and English tunes. If you're even luckier, like Amanda, myself,  and our new Korean friends, the norebang will serve exclusively grape soda and every song will be set to the background of what appears to be generic Korean music video footage. Overall, a norebang is a hilarious experience and an excellent addition to any night.

After many hours of karaoke, Amanda and I ended our night over sweet potato ice cream and made our way back to the Yellow Submarine. We parted ways early the next morning, as I had to return home to pick up my ARC and passport. These all important documents have finally been returned to me, which means that, once again, I have an identity and maybe one day soon (or maybe Thursday when I go back to school) I will be a real person with my very own bank account, cell phone and internet connection. As of now... a girl can only dream.

That's all for now! Miss you all, next post... palaces and Muui-do!