Jeju Island for Chuseok

For those of you who don't know, this Tuesday through Thursday is Chuseok in Korea, their Thanksgiving basically. For this holiday I get Friday off at work, so Ronald and I decided to come down to Jeju Island, an island in the south of South Korea. Right now I'm writing from a jjimjilbang (씸실방) that we found.

To get to Jeju from Seoul, you take a plane from the domestic terminal of Gimpo airport. There we ate lunch at a place that had Korean fast food. We ordered a hamburger and a ddongass, the breaded pork cutlet dish they stole from the Japanese (dongatsu there). When the burger came, Ronald lifted the bun to check out the fixins and found there to be no meat...anyways, they were embarrassed and took the plate and added the hamburger to the hamburger.

Then we went through security where you are allowed to bring liquids...I had my nalgene full of water and they didn't even look twice at it. However, they did stop me and ask me if I had anything "spray". I couldn't think of anything so I said no and asked where in the backpack the "spray" was. I opened my backpack and pulled out a small bottle of perfume, "This?" I asked.
"No," she replied and proceeded to say "spray" and make strange gestures around her nose. I opened it a bit further and we found a tremendous bottle of bug spray that I had totally forgotten about! I'd left it in my backpack from the last time I'd used it and just didn't think about it. As it turns out, that bottle is also allowed...news to me. Why would they ask to see it if it doesn't matter?

To get to our flight (JejuAir which has a winking face as its logo) we had to take a shuttle bus, but the plane took off at about 16:30 and landed one hour later. We were nervous about the weather because in Seoul it had been raining a bit but when we landed in Jeju it was clear.

Our first stop was Tourist Information in the airport. We got a nice map that has a ton of stuff marked, and asked the women about some of the things I had already researched or gotten suggestions about. We've planned to stay around the island in a clockwise motion, ending with our last night (Sunday) back in Jeju-si (the northern city where the airport is located) because then we can see some of the things that are around that area and not have to travel far on Monday morning because our flight leaves early.

We took bus 100 to the Jeju Intercity Bus Terminal (the first stop the bus made, though the bus driver knew what we were asking when we said it in English) and then went up to the window and asked for a ticket to Seongsan, a city in the east. The woman gave us a ticket for 19:00 (cost: 3,000 so we had about 30 minutes to kill. I bought a popsicle and Ronald bought a drink and some crackers. Took a picture of the amazing bathroom sign (I'll upload this when I get back home) and then got on the bus at five to seven. The bus left about two minutes later -- they actually leave early here, not late!

We arrived in Seongsan (or nearby...) at 20:30 and asked the bus driver about a jjimjilbang in the area that the Tourist Information lady had given us. He knew about this one and the bus stop was not even a block away. We thanked him and headed up the small hill/driveway to Pilican 빌리켄 Jjimjilbang. Just before walking in I felt in my right pants pocket and noticed my wallet was no longer there. I knew it had fallen in the bus, but I searched through my purse anyways and didn't find anything.

We walked in the jjimjilbang, Ronald paid the 7,ooo per person, and I tried to call information in Jeju, and the woman told me I needed to call the Seogwipo bus station because that's where my bus would have been heading. I got disconnected and so tried to ask the woman at the jjimjilbong to use her phone to call the terminal. There was a man standing there too, so I managed to communicate to them (through pictures and gestures) that I had left my wallet on the bus and needed to call the terminal. The woman took my notebook with the number (which turned out to be a fax number, thanks information lady) and when she got off the phone she told us that the police were on their way.

So we put away our bags, changed into our uniforms, and by the time I came out, the police officer was there talking to Ronald about what happened. We gave him all the information we had to give and he told us that the bus companies were already closed for the day so he'd have to call tomorrow.

He called a couple hours later and told me they'd found my wallet! They have it at Seogwipo Bus Terminal and he wanted to give it to me at 6pm tomorrow. Since we are on vacation, we don't have much time to see everything, so he asked where we would be tomorrow. I told him and he said that maybe I could just go to the terminal myself and ask for the wallet. I'm not really sure what he decided, but I know he is going to call me tomorrow. Either way, my wallet seems to be safe and under supervision -- yay Korea! If this had happened in South America, I would have had to kiss all that goodbye. No way would that be returned to me.

So tomorrow we're going to see what things we can get to before the policeman calls. Will update later.

Chao!

DMZ

Today we went to the DMZ, JSA, 3rd tunnel, and a train station (I don't remember its name...). We went with USO (paid 79,000 won) and had to be at their office at 7:10 this morning. We were a bit late getting there, but there was no problem -- we just got on the bus and headed out. We were on bus A and bus B followed us there. I put pictures up on picasa, and I think those pretty much show what we did. Except for the tunnel where we had to take out everything and put it in lockers, wear hard hats, and climb up and down the tunnel. Basically, you couldn't get close to North Korea besides the conference rooms, and you couldn't really take pictures either. I pretty much just hope they reunite soon, though I can't imagine how hard that's gonna be on those poor North Koreans...

Here's a short video of part of the briefing we had. Or you can go here to see it a bit bigger if you're interested.

Daegu

So this past weekend we went down to Daegu to meet up with some friends from Chile. Turns out that going in bus vs. train takes the same amount of time (three hours and forty minutes)! So we went for the cheaper bus route, but ended up paying like 24,000 for each way, per person...we didn't have time to wait for the cheaper bus because we only had Saturday and Sunday to get there and back.

So we took the bus down there and took the metro to stop #131 (there are only two short metro lines in Daegu) and met them under a stage. We all immediately went to the love motel we were staying at, took showers, left our stuff there, and headed out for food and booze. We ate at The Holy Grill, a Mexican food restaurant owned by some Canadians. Ronald and I had gone there the one other time we were in Daegu, and it was super good, so we had no trouble convincing the group to eat there. Sorta pricey, but totally worth it.

After that we bought drinks in a plastic bag-like thing and walked around looking for the bar where all of their other friends were. It was an imitation English pub and before entering I snuck into the shop next door and bought some really cute vintage earrings -- success! Anyways, after that we bar-hopped and then ended up at a noraebong (karaoke room) and after just heading back to sleep, but not without the obligatory stop at the pizza-in-a-cup lady. She serves little pizzas in a cup from her little food stand and they are delicious.

The next morning around noon we checked out (doing this by leaving the large plastic key in a box glued to one wall of the elevator) and went to a breakfast place (on the same street as The Holy Grill, one block down) that some of the kids had been to the day before. It was an American style breakfast restaurant. I ordered a berry smoothie and Ronald and I shared the "breakfast" and "ham cheese sandwich". The "breakfast" consisted of a salad with balsamic dressing placed in the middle of: toast, scrambled eggs, sausage, and french fries. The "ham cheese sandwich" was a club sandwich basically. Strange sauce, though.

After we decided to walk around a bit and go shopping, but after about 20 minutes we just headed to the bus station and caught the next bus back to Seoul.

Anyways, it was nice to hang out with our Chile contacts before they leave for the states and England.

Off to the DMZ on Saturday and Jeju Island next Tuesday for Chuseok. Hopefully we'll get to meet up with some of the people we met in Daegu (one is a Sewanee grad C'07!)

Too long...

Ok well I know it's been a ridiculously long time since my last update, so I'll do my best here to fill in the gaps.

As for japan, we took the cheapest bus from Tokyo to Kyoto, which was not cheap, and it was like 60 for a normal bus. Whatever. It's cheaper than the trains. It was super hot and humid when we were there, so that cut down our enthusiasm a bit.

For tokyo, i thought kinda the only cool part was Akibahara, their technocenter. It;s really big and you can buy tons of stuff there (duty free if you have your passport with you...like 5% off or something). Not everything is super cheap, but for the most part there are pretty good prices. Ronald liked tokyo better I think, because he has quite a background in animae, whereas I have no idea apart from pokemon (is that even animae?). So anyways, we went in a few Taito places and stuff...pretty much I would say to go to the technomart and then get the hell out of that city. There is a famous fish market there though, and we tried to go the last day only to find out its closed on Sundays...sad day.

I thought Kyoto was nice and wish we'd had more time there. There are cool side trips like going to Nara or Hiroshima (was sick about missing this one!). From kyoto you can also go down to Osaka. Anyways, for Kyoto, you have to hit the main palaces. The city buses and metro are really easy to use, though the JR line is operated by an independent company, so they have separate tickets. There are tons of tours offered, but unless you want to know the history, it would be pretty worthless. We did it on our own and just saw the places, which was fine for us. The main ones I can remember that we saw were the Golden Pavillion and one that is a famous scene with the water in front...

Also we went to Harajuku to try to get a glimpse of the Japanese that dress in crazy baby doll or emo outfits. Gion was another place we visited which is the area that Geisha traditionally live in. We only saw one and then went to the river restaurants. There are probably about a billion and they have outside patios over the water. We didn't sit outside because you had to order one of their set menus and they were all filled with fish, of course.

Japan in general is expensive. You can get some cheap street food in some places, but other than that it's sort of ridiculous. Basically, you just have to prepare yourself before going that you're gonna spend a lot of money and to not let it get you down. It was hard sometimes, like when we stayed in a capsule hotel...I paid like 50 for one night, but had to rationalize it...only in Japan, ya know? The capsule was SUPER comfortable (it's like a jjimjjilbang...but for sleeping it has capsules or the open area). The ryokans are the traditional housings in Japan, but if you go to a traditional one, they're in the country and like 300 a night! That was too much for me, but mainly we just wouldn't have had the time to travel there and back because our trip was so short. In Kyoto we stayed in a hostel called Capsule Ryokan and it was really nice -- no curfew, the people spoke English, free internet, a common kitchenette, storage. It was nice. I cant remember how much that was though.

The money was a little hard for me at first but I figured out a trick: 1,000 yen = 10.00. You just put the period after two of the digits and add a bit. So really 1,000 is more like 13 dollars. Our bus tickets were like 5,000, so they were around 60.

Back in Korea, I just finished my intensive month and am very glad that is over now. I spend way too much time at that school and it's nice to have more time to sleep and just not be stuck at that place. A new teacher arrived this week, Amanda, and will be taking over for Nhi, who leaves in the next few days. She's from Michigan and is half Korean (but looks white) and is trying to learn Korean. She has some family here and will be moving into Nhi's apartment tomorrow. She's never taught before and is a bit nervous, but I think she'll be a great teacher because she's really excited and enthusiastic about it. Today was the last day of classes for this month so on Monday I'll be getting some new students which will be nice. Today we played Apples to Apples in my Social 3 class and they loved it...success!

Ronald and I are going to take a music class here starting September 4th, every Saturday for two hours until November 20th or something like that. That day is the concert...in costume. Pretty excited about the costume part. Other than that the biggest thing we've been trying to figure out is how to send back our luggage to the US before we go around southeast Asia. It's sorta tough to figure out because the biggest box you can send from the post office is pretty small. Next week Sora will call about shipping it there in a boat and see what that's all about.

Last night after I got home from work I skyped with Meaghan and her eighth grade class...pretty crazy. One kid asked if I'd eaten mei...have no idea what that is and must look it up...

Can't wait for the humidity to disperse...

Japan

We went to Japan for the 5 days of break I had...I was sticky the whole time from the humidity, but it was very pretty...I'll try to update later, but right now I'm swamped with intensives (we added a 3-hour daily class for a month) and report cards...

Random stuff

Chile lost. :( very sad.

Went to Caribbean Bay today -- it's part of the Everland theme parks. This one is a water park. I showed the woman my expired Chilean ID card and Ronald gave her his driver's licence to get us in with a student discount, so it was 25,000 won instead of 45,000. The lines were long even today and it's just some random day of the week!! It was sorta hot but got cold when the gray clouds came and started sprinkling. We only went on like 4 rides and I scraped my knees and some of my foot on the bottom of the pool of water when our tube tumped over at the end. Tomorrow is another work day, so I've been finishing report cards and grading essays -- bo-ring. This weekend is the Canada Day/4th of July BBQ cruise thing hosted by the Canadian Embassy...I'm pretty excited about that!

World Cup, Korea vs. Nigeria

For this game, we went to the Olympic Park. I made tuna sandwiches, bought some wine, and put it all in my backpack. We walked from Cheonho to the park and a nice guard guided us to where they were showing the game. We got there around 1:30 I think (the game started at 3:30 am -- Tuesday night/Wednesday morning). It was pretty incredible to be walking through an absolutely silent park for about 15 minutes because when we finally got to the screening area, there were a ton of people.

First we decided to try and enter. They had set up a large screen with four sections of fenced-off grass. We tried to just walk in but the guard indicated to us that we needed a wristband, so we waited in a short line and walked up to the woman. She said something to me and proceeded to chuckle in an embarrassed way and give me a wristband after my grunt and giggle saying something like "I don't know". We walked up to the front section and sat down and waited basically. We found out later that the people in the back two sections had blue wristbands, so we don't really know what was going on there because it was free. Whatever.

So we ate sandwiches, poured the wine, and waited. They started a pre-game pep-up show basically around 2 am. The people went crazy and everybody was cheering and singing their little anthem. They were also dancing. Or was it cheerleading? I'm not sure what to call it, but they had pretty effeminate dance moves to go along with their song. They literally played this on repeat and people continued for about 15 minutes.

When the game finally started...excuse me, when they finally showed the TV station showing the game, people started cheering and when they showed the players waiting to go out onto the field it sounded as if they had just won the game. After the singing and the kickoff, the moment one of the Korean players got the ball, the crowd absolutely exploded with cheers. They were so excited about everything -- it was hysterical. Literally one time they showed the goalie in the goal yelling at one of his teammates and screams erupted from the crowd.

We left at halftime to go home...I had to work today!

I think the most interesting thing, besides the way they cheer, is the way they watch the game. We were in a park, an open field, and EVERYBODY was sitting down, watching the game. I think if I'd seen it in the states, we'd be standing up.

Anyways, I'm tired, so I'm off, chao!

World Cup

We went to a bar in Itaewon to watch the first world cup game of Korea vs. Greece and it was crazy. The Koreans go absolutely nuts when anything happens. They scored a goal and the people celebrated as if they'd won the game. Pretty great. So when they did win the game, it was even more insane!

Monday we watched the Chile vs. Honduras game and the people in the bar asked who we were rooting for and then joined us in cheering on the Chilean team. Near the end of the game, a couple of Koreans wanted to share a table with us and a drink, so they joined us at our table and we talked (sort of) for about 10 minutes. They left just before the game ended, and when we were leaving we went up to pay, and they told us that the two guys had already paid for us...pretty amazing! We didn't even know them and they picked up a decent sized tab for us!

I have the 29th off, so I'm looking forward to that. Other than that, it's been the same ol same ol....It's really really hot here and our fan is on constantly and it's super humid. Pretty gross.

Off to class!

This weekend

On Saturday we had a picnic at Seoul Grand Park with Minsoo and a Venezuelan, Arturo. Then we checked out the zoo a bit and headed home...it was really nice to just hang out and the weather was nice. Hot, but nice.

On Sunday we took a tour with RAS to a cave a little bit south of the city and it was super lame! Haha...well, from my point of view it was because at Sewanee we could actually explore the caves, but here it was just like Rock City...there was a metal pathway you had to follow. Big cave, pretty cool, but super annoying and stupid to just be on that one pathway. After that we took a little boat ride and got to see some pretty scenery. Then we headed to a traditional village where we saw traditional houses and we got to walk up to their lookout place (I'm assuming this is what it was, but everything was written in Korean, so....) with a really spectacular 360 view. After that we headed home and Ronald and I went to see the movie Dragons. We liked it! I thought it was good.

June

We have new classes! I keep my oldest class and my youngest class. Tom had to quit! I'm so sad. His mom was angry because he never wanted to do his homework. Sad. And Peter is gone now to his new school.

This past weekend we went to Namdaemun market. Pretty neat. And Saturday we made another Costco trip, this time taking along my suitcase. Bought more Dr. Pepper and some cheddar cheese! I made fajitas last night and it's just not the same without guacamole/avocado *sigh.

July 28-August 1 is a holiday for me, so I don't have work. Ronald and I are gonna go to Tokyo! I'm excited for that. It'll be nice to have a real break and not just a weekend. On the 29th we're gonna see Zed, a Cirque du Soleil show. Sorta pricey flight-wise, but it's high season.

Other than that, it's been sorta busy with report cards and essays -- I just finished today. It's been sorta hectic getting the new classes ready, but once we settle in, it'll be fine. Can't wait for the weekend though! Today we have to work when nobody else does -- it's a national holiday, Election Day. The kids don't even go to school. Grr.