school for boys

This week all of our students are male. This news was greeted with general groaning and trepidation, but overall they've been pretty well behaved; no girls to impress generally seems to balance the kids out. That said, there's been some interesting fiascoes and very quotable moments this week.

As usual, they're fascinated by my piercings. My ability to shove my finger through my earlobe has earned me the nickname "Monster" which I have accepted good-naturedly. The students I've had always remember me, and a few in particular make it a point to wave and yell frantically every time they see me. This has also led to a few good quotes of the week. For example, tonight in passing: "Ohhh, Monster teacher. Holes good. I like your holes." Um.....thanks. Another lad had already heard of my stretched lobes, and so during introductory question time when we usually get asked "where are you from" and "what's your favorite food," he put his hand up and asked "teacher Lauren, can you throw a pencil through your ear?"

Tonight we played a game called Helium Stick, where the entire class has to keep one finger on a long stick, and lower it to the ground without removing their fingers. The combined contact, however, makes it rise instead. They get maddened by it, and I admit, I get a bit gleeful at their frustration. I felt bad tonight, though. One unhappy boy told me, "teacher, this game....it breaks friendships."

By far, though, my favorite student this week has been a precocious kid named Gyung Hoon. He has great English and a mischievous sense of humor. When I jokingly told the students I was 14 years old, he piped up "oohhh, same age as my mother!" Eventually I told them my real age, and later on he patted my shoulder, perfectly deadpan, and said "teacher, you are 30 and I am 15. It will never work between us."

Perhaps the strangest overall occurrence this week, however, was last night. I lucked out and had movie night, so my responsibilities consisted of fetching the students to the concert hall and getting them to sit quietly for the movie. Halfway through, however, they stopped the film because the boys' schoolteachers wanted a word with them. We English teachers vacated the room and went up to the sound booth to see what was happening. Apparently some of them had been rude or disrespectful, so it was punishment time. Now the strange part: the punishment consisted of calling the naughty boys up on stage, and making them bend over in a sort of forward crouch and pretend to be a motorcycle. Then the teacher would yank on their ears. The right ear was the accelerator: when yanked, the student yelled "VROOM VROOM VROOM." Left ear was the horn: the teacher tugged it and the student hollered "BADI BADI BADI!" This was all accompanied by general laughter and applause from the audience.

Sometimes this job is really, really strange. But always entertaining.

in CHINA! (What?)

This is slightly outdated, but I had some technical difficulties uploading to various blogs. As I may have mentioned, about a month ago I spent 4 days in China. I had an absolutely smashing time. Meg is a fantastic travel buddy, we were well synched the whole time. We maintained a good balance between fun vacation time, and goal-oriented tourist time, flirted shamelessly with everything in our path, and really did the city up right.

We had a relatively easy flight, got into Beijing around 11:00 local time. Successfully negotiated the airport train, subway system, and taxi drivers, to find our hotel in plain sight of the Forbidden City. The hotel was amazing, the staff spoke great English, and we immediately set up some activities through their services desk. For the first night, we got tickets to the Beijing Acrobats, and we had time to hunt down some dinner before the show. Mandarin shredded pork and Peking duck fed us well, along with a few massive Tsingtao beers. Then off to the show! The acrobats were phenomenal, it may have been the best performance I have ever seen. From cup-balancing contortionists to slack-wire acrobatics to parasol juggling (with her feet!!) to fitting twelve girls on one bicycle, I was agape for every single act. After the show we managed to hail a cab, bought some ice cream with the help of our adorable bellhop, Ricu ("Ricu, here is some advice. If you buy a girl ice cream, you will have her heart." "Then I will buy two ice creams, and have two hearts!") and collapsed.

Friday morning we were up bright and early to see the Great Wall of China. We got a tour package that took us to the Badaling Great Wall, a Jade Factory, a Cloisonné Factory, a traditional lunch, the Ming Tombs, a Silk Factory, a teahouse, and a bonus stop for Chinese foot massage. We saw a lot of really cool things...and then were pressured to buy a lot of really cool things. The sad truth is, most of the interesting stuff was just a quickie rush-through to get us to the shopping area...kind of like a museum and gift shop in reverse proportions. I did get some cool souvenirs, but it was hard not to feel bad sometimes. The teahouse lady did a really excellent presentation of different kinds of tea, but then got really upset when no one wanted to buy any. One guy in our group felt so bad for her that he ended up buying almost $100 worth of tea just to cheer her up! Besides the tourist trap stuff, though, it was a really thorough day. We saw lots and lots of Beijing, learned some interesting stuff at the various stops, and OMG climbed the Great Wall of CHINA! I cannot describe how mind-blowing it was to see that wall climbing up through the mountains. I was floored. We climbed only partway, as the stairs were icy, but we had an amazing view of the Wall and the surrounding mountains from the guard tower. Friday night we collapsed in exhaustion and succumbed to room service, although we had wanted to go out clubbing. I think we were asleep before ten PM!

Saturday we bounced out of bed and walked over to the Forbidden City, the residence of the emperor and his court. Once again, I was blown away. The Forbidden City is unbelievably massive, and maintained perfectly to reflect the same grandeur of when it was built. Such wide open spaces, such soaring pagodas, such bright colors and ornate decoration....I can hardly put it into words. It truly held the feeling of being locked in history, of standing in an ancient space where the leader of a great dynasty lived and ruled...I have never felt so blown away by any place I've traveled. There's a huge main courtyard and then a secondary one, and then lots and lots of smaller buildings, all beautiful and interestingly named. (The Palace of Abstinence? The Temple of Medium Harmony? It's right behind the Temple of Supreme Harmony. I'm 100% serious.) In the smaller areas there were lots of "students" who tried to get us to see their "free" "art shows" (who knows, maybe they were legit, but it just sounded too scammy to trust) and eventually we left and caught a bus to the Beijing Zoo.

Riding buses in Beijing is a whole special kind of awesome, and it was a little nerve-wracking being completely unfamiliar with the city. The kindly bus attendant pointed us off at our stop, after a long ride of tumbling into other passengers and getting gawked at shamelessly. (As the only two Westerners on the bus, both blonde, cute, and giggly, I suppose I understand why.) We found our way into the zoo and rushed right for the pandas! Pandas were a little sad...some of the cages were too small and dingy, but others were pretty nice. I hope they rotate them. There were lots of other cute animals, but we were ravenous at this point (note: do NOT eat a hot dog from street food vendors in Beijing. yecchhh) so we found a little restaurant and chowed down. There was lots more to the zoo, but the big cats in small cages were depressing so we vacated, stopped to be cheered up by monkeys, and headed out. The subway on the return trip was more crowded than any public transit I have ever experienced. There really was a man to shove you into the train so the doors could close. Despite aching feet, we hopped off the subway at Wangfujing Street to check out the shopping. It was an interesting mix of modern and old-fashioned shops; there was a mall with a Nike store and Vans and Zara right next to a back alley open market selling fried scorpions and tourist trinkets. Got some more awesome souvenirs and a present for a certain friend, haggled shamelessly and successfully, and emerged triumphant. Bonus moment of win: we ducked into a department store to use the bathrooms, and on the way out, a bunch of men were lunging over their counters at us, waving their products frantically. One held an electric razor, another, an electric toothbruth. The third, a vibrator. I began cackling helplessly as we fled, and I heard him holler after us, "I love you!!!" Well, I should say so!

Our last morning dawned wet and snowy, and we were nearly deterred from our final explorations by the promise of leisurely breakfast in the hotel lobby. We did in fact succumb, but emerged victorious with borrowed umbrellas and trundled off to Tiananmen Square. Turns out it was embarrassingly close to Forbidden City and we could have seen it easily the day before, but live and learn. It was a sight to behold in the snow, especially the obligatory main gate with Mao's portrait. We kept it short and just walked around the perimeter, since we had a flight to catch, and then grabbed a rickshaw back to the hotel, for the experience. Turned out to be a near-death experience, followed by our first and only getting-ripped-off experience, but we only lost about $3. We made it safely to the airport with time to spare, had a dubious airport hamburger, and flew through the snow back to Korea!

More than any other place I've traveled yet (with the possible exception of Colombia), Beijing felt like a place that truly lived up to my expectations. It wasn't depressingly modern or smaller than its reputation...it was everything I'd hoped for and more. I know good company goes a long way towards a good travel experience...but there was more to it than that. Once again, I face the traveler's dilemma: I'd love to go back and see it again, but there are so many more places I haven't seen yet!!

strange moments of subways

I was heading home from C.'s last night on the subway. It was later in the evening, so the trains were not jam-packed; this was pleasant. At Seolleung, I was waiting for the transfer, when I heard a commotion. Note: in Korea, subways and their stations are quiet, orderly places. People actually queue nicely to board the train. So shouting, which would barely cause the bat of an eyelash on SEPTA, is incredibly strange. Heads whipped around; people started muttering. Two men were shouting and tousling about 50 feet down the platform. The smaller one kept shouting "YAH!" (which is a big attention-getter here, I use it to make my students shut up instantly). I thought maybe he was drunk. Shouting continued. People began sprinting down the platform to the fight. There were punches thrown, limbs flailing, and a woman (his wife?) kept trying to drag the shouter away, getting hurled backwards in the process. Finally several men dragged him towards me, flung him down on the steps, and held him down, smacking him a few times, and then dragging him away.

I have NEVER seen anything like this here. The closest I've seen has been a drunk person acting stupid, although rarely belligerent. And of course, not knowing the language, I had no idea what was happening. Just then, the train arrived, so I got on, still full of curiosity. A woman who boarded next to me also looked perturbed, so I took a gamble and spoke to her. (Small talk doesn't happen here, linguistic barrier or not.) I asked her "Why?" in Korean. She answered in flawless English, "they were fighting. I'm not sure why." "Was he drunk?" I asked. "No, they were having a disagreement. You speak Korean?" she continued, still in impeccable English. "chogum" I smiled (means "a little bit.")

We chatted the whole way to her subway stop. She shares my fascination for languages, and works and attends church near C.'s place. We talked about cultural confusion and the Korean alphabet, about teaching and careers and all sorts of interesting things. She gave me a little package of ddok, a sort of sticky rice cake (which was nice, as I hadn't had dinner yet). We exchanged numbers and will probably have lunch at some point.

It was fascinating to me that one such strange occurrence, a public fight in Korea, led to such another strange happening: starting up small talk and finding someone with flawless English, making a new friend. It was a day full of interesting new experiences: I also went to my first Catholic service, which was also my first church visit in Korea. I tried Korean gelato as well (not quite as good as back home, but tasty).

Sometimes every day feels like an adventure. :)

I actually have to WORK?

After nearly four months of cross-training, lesson writing, development, and many idle hours, I have spent the past five days actually doing the job I was hired to do. Yes, friends, I have finally gotten to teach. Real students, who do not speak English as a first language. Rambunctious boys and giggly girls, all obsessed with one goal: to get another STICKER!!!

A month or so ago, I switched a shift this week with another teacher, so that he could go on a long vacation with his wife, and in return he will work a day for me in January (allowing me to go on a vacation of my own!). I didn't know that this would be our first week with students. The timing was unfortunate, since now not only do I have students, but I get to work 11 days with only one day off in the middle. Exhausting? Indeed. Informative? VERY. And to my surprise, I find myself not quite as burned out as I thought I would be, although I am looking forward to my day off tomorrow with great anticipation.

The real work started on Saturday, with a weekend program. They arrived around 2 in the afternoon, had classes until 9 PM, and then started back up Sunday morning at 9, until finally finishing around 3:00. They were quite bright, which generally means they are a little extra energetic and hard to control. Thankfully, my weekend supervisor was kind enough to pair me with experienced teachers, so I could begin to see how classes are run. The classes were also mercifully small, 10 students per teacher, two classes in the same room. So between myself and one other teacher, we managed 20 kids. This sounds incredibly cushy compared to a normal schoolteaching environment, but this place is set up more like a summer camp then a classroom, so you often need an extra teacher just for crowd control, or to help keep the energy and enthusiasm high.

We met the students at the front gate, gave them their 'passports,' and showed them to their hotels (small dorm buildings at the back of campus). It was strangely nervewracking, I really didn't know how to behave or what to say. Looking back, I'm amused at myself for being so nervous! We started our program with an opening ceremony, went over the rules, then began classes. The weekend lessons are fun: we had a science lesson that talked about gravity and about different shapes, and then the students got to do an egg drop. Your egg didn't break? STICKERS! Then there was some game time, where we learned Deathball - also a little tricky to do on the fly, but we figured it out. Next, we did a cooking class where they got to make cupcakes, with FOUR classes in the same room. Utter madness, the cupcakes finished baking late, and we had to bring them to the students in their hotels. There was also a glitch about where they were supposed to be sleeping, and in the midst of rearranging, we thought we lost one girl. (Turns out she hadn't come to EV, and the hotel list was wrong, but *whew* scary.) I went back to my room and totally collapsed!

Sunday didn't go very smoothly, but I learned quickly that it's not the end of the world. I taught two sessions of advertising class, where students learn about brand names, products, slogans, and adjectives and then get to make their own commercial. Both times we ran out of time to finish making the commercials, partly because I didn't know how to use the software so the other teacher ran around like a maniac helping all the groups. We were going to try and finish after lunch, but time was a factor then, and the students didnt even seem to notice. We took them to the show that is currently playing this season, then went to outprocessing and closing ceremony and sent them on their way!

Despite the fact that nothing really went quite right or smoothly, I learned some useful tricks about how to elicit answers from students, figured out the process of getting them where they need to go (teachers, students, and classrooms shuffle after each class, so sending them to the right place AND having your new classroom ready to go takes some effort), got shamelessly flattered by students in pursuit of stickers, and generally got a lot more comfortable in the role of...whatever it is I'm supposed to be here.

Monday I didn't work until 1 PM, so I took an early morning grocery store trip with Meg and Eugene. Too early, in fact: the store didn't open for 45 minutes. They let us sit inside in the customer service area, and it was almost worth the wasted time to see the store's opening ceremony: all the greeters and employees line up at the main entrance, a bell chimes, and in unison they say something along the lines of 'welcome and happy shopping' while executing a perfectly synchronized bow.

Monday afternoon was hectic, indeed: all the lessons are brand new, so no one has any experience with them. This whole week has been like that, actually, but Monday kicked it all off. We have 350 girls from a middle school program, of widely varying ability levels. I was scheduled in content areas that I had never even trained in, since I was busy training the ones I had written, but I jumped in wherever I could. The first two classes were about sending messages, and gearing up the students to record their own statement ("Hello, my name is Min Jin Kim, and I am a cute girl who likes soccer. I would like to talk to you about school uniforms..." etc.) It was hard to tell if we had adequately prepared them, since the classes build upon each other, but the teachers change midway through. After two of those lessons, I had to run to drama, where I taught with the woman who had developed the drama lessons. THAT was awesome, the class ran smoothly and the students had a blast acting out dialogues with voice actors reading the lines, and silent actors doing the gestures. From there, I had to monitor dinner in the cafeteria and then run the helium stick game during Go-Go. (three rooms host three different games, and 3 groups of students rotate through to play each game.) Helium stick is fun: the object is to lower a stick to the ground, but each member of the team has to continually touch it with one finger. The combined force of each finger is greater than gravity, so the stick ends up rising instead of lowering, despite all the screaming of "LOWER LOWER LOWER!!!!" It was a challenge to run the game in a way that kept everyone interested, and we had to do a few trial runs to properly explain the rules, but eventually we hit a good stride. Games are a little lower pressure, but much higher energy, so by 9:00 I was thoroughly wiped out.

Tuesday I got to teach the lessons I had actually written, and I was very nervous; I was selected to write because I had no experience with the way EV has worked so far, and they wanted a fresh perspective...but I wasn't sure I had made them actually teachable for ESL students. I had good coteachers and a high level class, and for the most part things went all right, barring plenty of technical difficulties (whiteboard was too small, classroom was too small, nowhere to hang the charts I'd made, etc). The activities I had designed were fairly open ended, but I found ways to make them work, and added some impromptu material as needed. That night I was scheduled to MC a game called Quiz Buffet, which I've never seen, so I gratefully traded with Arienne, who wanted out of helium stick. (Second time was the charm - it went very well.)

Today! Since I covered Keith's shift, I worked the morning instead of evening shift. Again, I wasn't trained in any of the lessons, but we figured them out and made them work. We did a session on the library, and on using the words "lend' and "borrow," then a class on airport language, then a writing class about surveys...where we never even got around to writing the survey! Still had fun and got them talking a lot, though, which is what counts. I have 3 more classes this afternoon, one of which I am not even scheduled for, but I felt bad: I had 3 periods off, while my closest friend here was going to run a game by herself with two classes, so I offered to help out. Other classes include class 3 of the other lessons I wrote, but it's only baking cupcakes so it shouldn't be too involved...and then I take 2 classes to have dinner at one of the restaurants on campus and then to go shopping at EV Mart for candy and cheap toys. And then...I collapse! Thursday I am off, and Friday the students leave first thing, so we have a laid-back day of development and meetings for Christmas. (I still can't believe we don't get the holiday off. Unless we want to use a vacation day, that is. GAH.)

Overall, I feel so much more at ease around the kids, and while I still prefer not to lead the class, I am more than purely ornamental. If I had to lead, I feel like I could; I did, yesterday, and it went ok, although I still don't think my lessons are right for this environment. (That's a whole different issue that I won't get into, but we were told to develop in a style that doesn't really work here. How was I to know?) I've definitely had less training time than most people get, but I'm not totally thrown in the deep end either. I'm not freaked at the idea of this upcoming weekend program, or about next week. I definitely psyched myself out about how hard this was going to be. Once my body adapts to this new schedule, I'll do fine.

oh wait!

Actually, I DO have some things worth mentioning! They were well documented on facebook, but I should do them proper justice here. The stories are a tad old, but they were fantastically fun.

-Experienced my first norae-bang. This is a uniquely Korean custom: it's a small, private karaoke room. You pay to enter for 60-90 minutes, usually about $3 per person. There is a video screen and console, a table, some couches/benches, a book full of karaoke songs, two microphones, and some tambourines. You and your friends punch in your own numbers and sing whatever you want, with no inhibitions, to your heart's content. The selection is not great, but there's no one to make you self-conscious, so go ahead and sing Journey or Aerosmith or Evanescence! I know I did! Also, on the screen that displays the lyrics, there is a constantly changing wallpaper of completely irrelevant pictures. Flowers blowing in the breeze, perhaps, or farm workers picking soybeans. This may be the best part of norae-bang. That, and the fact that I frequently have no voice the next day, because I scream with such ruthless abandon. Last time, we wrapped up with an all-girl rendition of "Barbie Girl." I also cannot get away from Pat Benetar, Cyndi Lauper, and Spice Girls. It's shameful, but ever so much fun!

-Saw a Fish Doctor. More accurately, Dr. Fish. This phenomenon has found its way to the US, but it costs a LOT more. Here, you pay less than $2 for 20 minutes, although you are also obliged to buy a beverage, for Dr Fish resides in a coffee shop. Let me back up, if you're confused: there's no actual doctor. This is just the name for putting your feet into a tub of, essentially, polite pirahnas that are only interested in eating dead skin. From your feet. For 2o minutes. This is one of the strangest sensations I have ever felt. Yes, they only eat the dead skin, but you still feel the nibbles and tugs, and it tickles immensely. Some of the larger ones can nip quite hard. You just sit on cushions and put your feet in the tub, and the fish come to you! It was really hard to watch, for me, and also really hard to hold still. If you flinch or kick, the fish will swim away, but they always come back. Afterwards, my feet felt very very soft! Another entertaining element: you request this service while ordering your beverage. I think it's the only time in my life I will order "a vanilla latte, plus fish."

-Experienced a DVD-bang. ("bang" just means room, if you were wondering.) This is generally a place for Korean teens to make out, but the concept is cool: you can rent a movie for a couple hours, at any hour of the day or night, and watch it on large comfy couches that you can stretch out and lie down upon. It's a little pricey ($7-8 per person) but it beats taking a cab home, should you finish clubbing before the subways start running. I went to one of these with some new friends after we got done with the goth club around 3 AM (subways start at 5:30). DVD-bangs and noraebangs are allllll over, by the way. We rented "Angels and Demons" and I promptly fell asleep. Cheaper than a hotel!

I've also had lots of good food, including Korean interpretations of Indian, Chinese, and Mexican cuisines. Not too shabby overall, but I confess: I'd gnaw off my own hand for some good sushi or Ethiopian or Middle Eastern food. I need to get to Japan soon, when I have money to burn!

Absolutely Nothing

Hello faithful readers, I'm sure you've all wandered away in boredom, after so many fruitless days spent waiting for my updates. I don't know if you will forgive me for my silence if I say there has been literally nothing worth writing about. I still have not taught a single class, nor have I explored much more of Korea. I've made some friends and I see them frequently, and sometimes we make our way to museums or other notable historic sites, but mostly I surf the web and chat with friends. My life is actually quite boring right now. I'm more or less entertaining myself, but right now it is not quite the international experience I had envisioned.

Items worth noting: in February I will likely be visiting either Thailand or Vietnam: both cheap destinations full of tasty food. We get a week off for lunar new year, and there is a chance I will actually have some teaching experience by then. Hurray I say!

I've written a couple of cool units for our upcoming Intensive Winter Program, and I might even get to teach them. I've learned a few more words of Korean, and engaged in some entertaining pantomimes to get my point across. I found a goth club (!!!!) which was a highly entertaining experience, and I'm pretty comfortable finding my way around Seoul. I made a friend in the army, so I've gotten to see what life on base is like, and I get a few American goodies now and then. Otherwise, I sort of feel like I'm just passing the time. No doubt things will get more interesting once I start teaching, but I do still worry that it might never happen: if the program goes under before my year is up, I may resign at another school in order to get a more complete cultural experience. I'm not sure I want to be here for another full year, though.

It's hard to write an update blog when there's not much to update! I promise, if I have something cool to say, I will say it.

week of exploration

Let's see if I can remember everything I did in the past week.

After three weeks of doing nothing, last week was the Cheusok holiday, and I was off all week. Shameful negligence in blogging followed. I like to think it was because I was too busy doing stuff, but really I was just lazy.

Thursday: karaoke insanity! Our pub on campus is closing soon, so the owner is getting as much mileage as possible out of her karaoke machine. She advertised another night of singing, but almost no one showed up, so Erin and I just shrugged and jumped in. We were joined shortly by a huge group of Korean navy men who were on campus for English classes, all of whom had an incredible enthusiasm for karaoke! They asked us very politely if they could sing Korean songs, and we conceded the machine, eager to see what they'd do. Immediately a high energy performance ensued, with one petite man in bright pink dancing most lewdly! Others sang with great expression and passion, and Mr Pink just kept on wiggling his butt and pelvic thrusting throughout the night. He even tried to show me how to do his dance in pantomime: grab the front of your pants, and the back of your pants, and yank your pelvis back and forth piston-style. ....it worked for him...
Friday: I taught my first lesson, albeit to the rest of the staff, and on the last period of the last day before vacation. It was a farce. How am I supposed to teach 25 English teachers how to tell a doctor they have a headache or stomachache? We finished in maybe 20 minutes and dismissed. After work I went to a little bar about a mile away with Erin and Laura, we got strawberry soju. It's a frozen slushie style drink of blended fruit, ice, and soju (Korean equivalent of vodka). We got a pitcher but it's served in little shot glasses, so it's kind of hard to keep track of how much you're drinking, and it creeps up on you! Very tasty though. We had the sense to stop after pitcher #2. Walked home through interesting little backstreets; we live in such a quiet area!

Saturday: I met up with some people from an online community I joined, for Westerners working in Korea. Only had talked with the one girl by email previously, but she said it was a good group of people. The weirdest thing was that over half the people there had lived in Philly, and one guy's sisters had actually gone to Phil-Mont!!!! (For those who don't know, it's my teeeeeeny Christian high school. There were maybe 55 people in my graduating class. This same person, Johnny, also works quite near EV, coaching soccer. We definitely are going to hang out more and swap more stories about our bizarre shared backgrounds. We all ended up at a bar called Beer O'Clock for beer and pizza, tucked back in the Hongdae/Sinchon area of Seoul. Great to meet so many cool Westerners!
Sunday: Meg was meeting up with a friend she'd only met once before, and was worried it might be awkward, so I went along for moral support. While we waited, we got approached TWICE by men who apparently thought we were prostitutes, since we were perched on the street corner, and Meg looks sort of Russian, with her short blond hair. (Russian=hooker here.) The one pair were Nigerian, I think, and spoke fairly good English, but the Korean guys could barely communicate with us, besides to ask if we were Russian and to ask us to get a drink with them. We declined, so they went into the corner store and brought beers out to us! I think Meg needs to cultivate a better city demeanor and not make eye contact and/or smile at strangers. We finally found her friend and went out for barbeque, which I'm enjoying more and more. I need to practice ordering my favorite kinds of meat...
Monday was a dead day: sleeping in, cleaning my apartment, doing laundry, watching Harry Potter. I always think I want a vacation full of lazy days, and I always hate myself at the end of them for having done nothing interesting. Vowed not to let it happen again.
Tuesday: Meg, Erin, Laura, and I had lunch and tried to plan our week. Didn't come up with much concrete. We were thinking of arranging a trip to Busan, which is on the coast and is a decent sized city of it's own right, but no one's finances or pet-sitting responsibilities quite allowed it. We seemed ready to part ways without doing anything further, so I announced I was going into Seoul to do WHATEVER, and Laura decided to join me. We settled on going to COEX, a huge mall complex that also has an aquarium. It took a pretty long time to get there, but it was worth it. The aquarium was fascinating: so much of it seemed to be dedicated to the weirdest fish tanks you could imagine, and not so much about the fish themselves. I'll upload pictures shortly of fish in phone booths, traffic lights, fire extinguishers, and much more! Finally we did move through to the more interesting aquatic life. There was a tank of huge moray eels, along with cleaner fish who eat the dead flesh off the eels' skin and teeth. Seeing that sort of symbiotic relationship is kind of staggering, even though you read about it all the time! There were also some adorable otters, a two-headed turtle (!) some seals who were being lazy, and a penguin tank. Two of them were watching penguin cartoons on TV while snuggling quite amorously! The coolest part, though, was the shark tank with a glass walkway through it, with the Jaws theme music piped in! Ever had a live shark swim directly at your face while shark attack music plays?? It's an experience, to be sure. After the aquarium, we shopped around the COEX Mall for a bit, it is incredibly huge. Had a comfort dinner of KFC (did you know Koreans love fried chicken?) and headed home.

Wednesday I planned ahead a little more, and decided to do something interesting and historical. Settled on Jogyesa Shrine, the largest Buddhist shrine in Seoul. Laura came along again...I love how I defaulted to tourguide because I'm comfortable on the subways. We got off at Insadong and were promptly bewildered, because there's LOTS of stuff going on there, and its not clearly marked from the subway station. Eventually got pointed in the right direction, and found the shrine. Right away we were a little taken aback: the shrine did NOT look like a tourist destination, it seemed like an actual place of worship...which it is. Laura was especially neurotic because she's an atheist, but I'm curious enough to not feel disrespectful. We checked in the "Foreign Information Center" and they said we could go around, take pictures, etc, and that we should just be respectful and not disrupt the worshipers. Laura was still nervous to actually enter, but I kicked my shoes off and went right on in. There were three enormous gold buddhas at the front, and the room was full of worshippers on mats, either counting rosary beads or doing some sort of bowing ritual. I pulled out a mat, knelt down, and took a few discreet pictures, and got ready to leave, when an older woman pulled up a mat next to me and said "first time?" I said yes, and she told me "stand up. I am your teacher." Nonplused, I followed her instructions and stood. "Now kneel. Hands on floor. Head down. Palms up to honor them. Touch head. Head up. Now stand, palms together. Again." She took me through the entire ritual 3 times, and then wanted to know who I had lost. I realized then that it was close to a holiday that honors dead ancestors, although I believe that the same bowing ritual can be used at any time. I mumbled something polite about wanting to learn and made my exit. Laura was waiting curiously outside, and I spent the next few hours feeling strangely exalted. I really do need to find out more about religions in other countries, especially the kind that you can explore without the "all or nothing" mindset. After the Temple, we wandered the car-less streets of Insadong, got some tea, found the Knife Gallery (mentioned in my guidebook, it was a little basement room full of strange swords and blades) and went on a quest for a place for lunch. The last few times she and I have had bad luck with just picking a place at random, so we found a restaurant in the guidebook that sounded good: it serves mandu soup with huge oversize dumplings. The weird thing about Insadong, though, is that it's full of -gil, teeny little sidestreets. They're numbered, but there were TWO "Insadong-gil 5" so it took us a while to find the place. It can be a challenge to read the restaurant names in Korean, too. We eventually found it, and the servings were massive. We didn't come close to finishing, especially since we ordered a house specialty at the waitress's suggestion (some sort of Korean pancake) which was tasty, but also massive! We called it a day after that meal and staggered home.

Thursday was Tamara's birthday, and Meg and Erin had been craving ice skating, so we all went out to Lotteworld, an amusement park in Seoul with an indoor skating rink. Laura and I opted out of ice skating, and checked out the various rides instead, while Meg, Erin, and Tamara skated. The park was pretty cool; lots of the rides and displays were indoors, although there was an outside island-style part reminiscent of Disneyland. Unfortunately, we picked a day when all the schools had a half day, so the park was swarming with school kids by the afternoon. We waited an hour to ride the indoor roller coaster, which was pretty awesome! But it was also quite a long subway ride back to our bus stop, so we left after that....because Thursday is also PUNK NIGHT in Ilsan! We got home in time to eat, rest a bit, and change. Only Meg and I went to Punk Night, but it turned out to be a very entertaining evening. There were a lot of people out for one guy's goodbye party, and Dave, the DJ, was taking requests. Met lots of interesting people, saw some that I'd met the last time I was at that bar. Good times! Somewhere around 3 or 4, we stumbled home.

Friday I pried myself out of bed to meet up with a couple I'd met the previous weekend. We had sushi for lunch (conveyor belt style!) then went to Suwon, a small city outside Seoul that is walled from when it was a fortress town. We explored some of the historical buildings and did some shopping, and walked along the path at the top of the wall. Lovely view from up there! We were going to do some hiking, but the paths we meant to take were gated off for some reason, so we headed back to their apartment in Songtan instead. There's an air force base there, so there's lots of Western shops and culture. We had dinner at an authentic Mexican restaurant, complete with live music, then hung out at their apartment for a while, chatting and drinking wine. Even after only knowing them a week, it felt like we'd been friends forever. It would have taken me about 3 hours to get home, so I stayed in their spare room, and the next morning some friends of theirs joined us for lunch at a Brazilian churrascaria (all you can eat meat!)...it felt like a very multi-cultural weekend! I went home not long after that, and it did in fact take me 3 hours to get home. I'm definitely already irritated that I live in the suburbs.

Sunday I spent completely solo, which was kind of a relief. Sitting alone in my room is boring, but too much time spent around people is exhausting! I went back to Itaewon to get some clothes, and I found some cool Halloweeny decorations as well. The one store I like had some cute jeans, but they were too long, so she offered to hem them for me, for free. I said I'd come back Tuesday, but when she heard where I lived she was aghast and said "no, no! Too far! I send! Address?" I love this woman, she is so sweet and helpful! I headed back *almost* ready to go back to work on Monday...

All in all, I could have seen more of Korea if I'd tried, but at least I'm pretty comfortable with Seoul in general now. It feels a little more like 'home' or at least more familiar. It's good to be confident in where I'm going, even though the language will always be a barrier. I definitely meant to study Korean a lot more during this week off!